
Jan 30, 2025
Excellence and Catholic Education by David G Bonagura, Jr. at The Catholic Thing. “Excellence,” along with its cousin “success,” is the most overused word in education. It adorns mission statements and admission pitches at all levels of both Catholic and secular schools, seeking to convince prospective students to enroll and prospective donors to give. The Catholic elementary school where I was educated, to name but one, had a citation on its outdoor sign: “A National School of Excellence.” The honor was bestowed by some accrediting agency that somehow wielded the majestic power to define what is excellent. And there is the game: everyone uses “excellence,” but no one really knows what it means. Read
Screens Have Taken Over Classrooms. Even Students Have Had Enough. by Sara Randazzo, Matt Barnum, and Julie Jargon at Wall Street Journal. Class time has become screen time in American schools. Kindergartners now watch math lessons on YouTube, counting aloud with the videos. Middle-schoolers complete writing drills on Chromebooks while sneaking in play of an online game. High-schoolers mark up Google Docs to finish group projects. Read
A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right by First Things Staff at First Things. Technology is meant to empower the human person. We have seen, however, that if left ungoverned, technological advancement too easily comes to hinder human flourishing and threatens the human person and the family. Many of the most important political questions of our day have been prompted by the moral implications of new technologies: Should human life be artificially created or destroyed? Can people change genders? Should digital obscenity be accessible to all ages in the name of free speech? Should jobs that sustain families be automated? We must discern prudent ways to govern technology in order to keep the human person, human dignity, and the common good as the central goals of our politics. We must ensure that new technologies serve human life and the human family, not the other way around. Read
The Dominican Effect on Catholic Schools by Jim Graves at National Catholic Register. The Dominican order dates back to the 1200s, with many of its members historically involved in teaching. That practice still continues today, with many Dominican sisters playing a prominent role in Catholic elementary and high schools nationwide. Frassati Catholic High School in Spring, Texas, is a growing institution for grades 9-12 serving 345 students in the north Houston area. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, have played an active role in the establishment of the school, beginning in 2011…Among the sisters’ contributions to the school is the introduction of a virtue program, in which a particular virtue is stressed for a time throughout the curriculum. Read
Adopting a Classical Curriculum Energized This Catholic School by Joseph Pronechen at National Catholic Register. In 2020, enrollment at Saint Theresa School in Trumbull, Connecticut, had dwindled to 167 students in grades K-8. But by 2024, enrollment increased — by 58.68% — to 265 students. The answer to the turnaround is elementary: Saint Theresa’s transitioned to a Catholic classical-education curriculum. Read
Educating Hands for Human Flourishing? or Economic Growth? by Nathaniel Marshall at Front Porch Republic. What is education for? And by what means can one be educated? To those who do not come from an educational background or have not given these questions much thought, the answers might appear self-evident: “Transferring information” and “by teachers and books and lectures and assignments.” While somewhat true, these replies are woefully reductionistic. Of course philosophical debates, spanning anthropological, political, social, economic, theological, methodological, and moral lines of reasoning, have raged across centuries—indeed, millennia—in search of satisfactory responses, and to this day there is not anything close to an accepted consensus. Read
American Kids Are Getting Even Worse at Reading by Matt Barnum and Sara Randazzo at The Wall Street Journal. The reading skills of American students are deteriorating further, according to new national test scores that show no improvement in a yearslong slide. The 67% of eighth-graders who scored at a basic or better reading level in 2024 was the lowest share since testing began in 1992, results from a closely watched federal exam show. Only 60% of fourth-graders hit that benchmark, nearing record lows. The declines started before the pandemic, continued during it, and have persisted since. While the lowest-achieving students fell further behind everyone else, the slides were broad, affecting students across different states, school types, races and economic backgrounds. Read
Be Still and Read by Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative. Some years ago I was discussing with a Benedictine abbot the trends he was experiencing among postulants and novices at the abbey. “Two of the most startling things” he observed “is their inability to sit still, and the their inability to curl up with a good book.” The decline of reading has also been noticed among college educators. This article in The Atlantic reports that college professors are alarmed by the unwillingness and inability of their students to read a book. Read
Respect the Text by Jeannette DeCelles-Zwerneman at Cana Academy. This column will address the chief argument against conducting seminars with high school students: In short, it invites arrogance. Why should what the students have to say be of any particular importance to anyone? They are young and inexperienced. They know little of the world. Asking them to critically reflect on these important texts encourages them to disrespect the text and inflates their egos. This concern regarding arrogance should be taken seriously by any seminar leader. One of the greatest corrective actions against possible arrogance is to encourage a respect for the text. Respect the text should be the refrain that guides every seminar discussion. Write it on the board if you must. Read
Trump to Sign Executive Order Promoting School Choice by Christian Datoc at The Washington Examiner. President Donald Trump will take executive action as soon as Wednesday to kickstart school choice programs, the Washington Examiner has learned. The president placed a concerted focus on education, specifically backing school choice proponents, on the 2024 campaign trail, including a pledge to shutter the Education Department. Critics claimed Trump could not achieve that goal without congressional approval. Read
EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Protect Parental Rights by Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell at The Daily Signal. Sens. Tim Scott and James Lankford, along with Rep. Virginia Foxx, introduced legislation to uphold parental rights in education, childrearing, and health care. “Parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing of their child, whether it’s in the classroom or at home,” Scott said in a statement first shared with The Daily Signal. “Yet, far too often, parents are being pushed out of their child’s lives, and kids are paying the price. I will always fight to put parents back in the driver’s seat and ensure they remain the lead decision-maker in their child’s life.” Read
With Eye on Eliminating Deficit, CUA Grapples with Proposed Changes to Academic Programs by CNA Staff at Catholic News Agency. Administrators, faculty, and students at The Catholic University of America (CUA) are in the throes of dealing with difficult decisions to eliminate a $30 million structural deficit revealed last month by the institution’s president, Peter Kilpatrick. During emotional meetings with faculty and students last week, CUA Provost Aaron Dominguez discussed a proposal, yet to be approved by the institution’s board of trustees, that among other changes could potentially close the university’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, and move that school’s existing academic programs into other schools of the university. Read
Throwback Thursday
Old School by Alexandra DeSanctis at National Review on August 10, 2023. Classical education is grounded in the liberal arts, the great-books tradition, and the history of Western civilization, and it is oriented toward pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty. While some opponents argue that classical education is too aligned with conservative politics, its aims are not motivated by or perfectly aligned with any particular political ideology or movement: teaching students moral virtue, forming their character, and helping them understand the human person and the world in which we live. Read