The Archdiocese of Boston has announced that two more elementary schools will not re-open this fall and there’s a big uproar over it. Unfortunately, in both the Boston Herald and Boston Globe coverage all we get is emotionalism, one-sidedness, and a lack of clear analysis.
Granted, announcing the closing of the schools in mid-August rather than at the beginning of the summer shows a lack of understanding of both how it will play in the press and how this affects families. But the reactions of the newspapers, some of the parents, and of politicians shows a similar lack of clear thought and logic.
Well, waiting until August when people are planning on getting their kids back to school in a few weeks was stupid. People have plans and schedules and it may not be possible to send a child to one of the other parochial schools. They may be too expensive or too far away for the parents to be able to make it work.
Practical matters aside, this might not be such a bad thing. I’ve heard of Catholic schools where there is no chapel, no cross on the wall and no Mass attendance. Why keep a school like that open? You might as well send the kid to CCD instead.
Actually, I’m hearing that there was a good reason why they waited until August, but I’ll put that in a new blog post.