Eileen McNamara is on her usual anti-Church riff, this time about the closing of parochial schools in Boston. She bemoans the loss of the schools and wonders if the archdiocese is trying to go out of the education business. I have a simpler question: How can we expect parents to continue to send their kids to private schools, while paying for public schools, too? If we allowed school choice, then all these fine parochial schools for which McNamara is mourning would be able to stay open. But then, that’s not allowed in the liberal ideology, is it? In reality, Eileen cares more about complaining about the Church than actually letting the Church do her work.
Besides, Eileen should be happy the schools are closing because it means kids won’t be “indoctrinated” in all those nasty Catholic dogmas she doesn’t like. Instead, they’ll get indoctrinated in liberal dogmas in the public schools.
Right on, Dom. School choice is coming, very slowly, but surely. The Supreme Court decision last year marked the beginning of the end of the public school system in the United States – as it allowed government vouchers to go to parents who enroll their kids in religious schools. Parents who care about 1) moral teaching; 2) Judeo-Christian values; 3) affirming, rather than denigrating religion; 4) quality education; 5) order and drug-free environments for their kids – and some reasonable return on money spent – are leaving the public school system in droves. Homeschooling is breaking out all over; the Baptists are (seriously) considering recommending that all Baptist parents withdraw their kids from public school (as has James Dobson), and in our area, more and more Catholic parents are working extra hard to put their kids in Catholic schools. Fortunately, the political threshold is being passed – where it will be impossible for politicians to force children back into their indoctrination centers – and hopefully, over time, where they will see that it is to their benefit to enable this.