The Real Jesuit Achievement --Middle Schools that Transform Boys
By Colman McCarthy
Ample praise is heaped on Jesuit educators for running 74 U.S. high schools and 28 colleges and universities. I was lucky to have studied at one of the schools and am privileged, too, to be teaching at another—and have visited dozens of others over the years.
As sparkling as these jewels are, the brighter shine may be elsewhere: in the luster of the Jesuit’s 16 middle schools.
Compared with educating college and high school students, who are mostly malleable and know the basics, teaching 6th, 7th and 8th graders is the far greater challenge. Extra energy is needed to excite 12, 13 and 14 year-olds to the love and rewards of learning.
For the past four years, that energy--and then some--has been lavished on a group of boys at the Washington Jesuit Academy. Located in a low-income and low-visibility part of the nation’s capital that has no embassies, no mansions and no political sheen, the academy is in its fifth year of defying the academic odds that children from poor and near-poor neighborhoods can be turned into long-shot 100 to 1 winners. In Washington, where the combined high school dropout in its 22 high schools hovers at 40 percent, success in middle school is crucial.
With 64 students this year, the Jesuit Academy operates on a half-day schedule. A real half day, 12 hours. The boys arrive at 7:30 a.m. and are dispatched at 7:30 p.m., with a summer program in June and July from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Socrates believed the ideal class size is five students. The number has been upped to 12 at the academy, with a core curriculum of reading, writing, math, history and science. On a wall outside an English class, a teacher listed the Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Reading Skills: 10 Read, 9 Read, 8 Read, 7 Read, 6 Read, 5 Read, 4 Read, 3 Read, 2 Read, 1 Read.
Apparently, the message has sunk in. At last year’s graduation ceremony—the academy’s first that saw 20 students sent off—the school’s president, Bill Whitaker, said that in three years the boys had read 2,877 books. Among them, no doubt, was Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” which is what the teacher’s have for their students.
The expected has happened. In 2002, only 13 percent of incoming students read at grade level. At year’s end, it rose to 47 percent and by graduation 90.
Each of last year’s graduates went on to quality high schools, both independent and public. Without the academy it’s likely the boys would have gone to District of Columbia public high schools, many of them cluttered with students disinterested in education either because of personal indifference or dysfunctional home lives. At the academy, parents come monthly to dinner meetings with their sons’ teachers, in contrast to conventional schools where uninvolved parents are the blight of American education. Are there doubts that children whose parents stay connected with the school—and not merely showing up once a year at parents’ night or checking the report card—tend to take their studies seriously?
The current academy budget is $2.5 million, none of it tuition driven. Except for a $200 activities fee, all costs are covered--including daily breakfast, lunch and dinner. On a full scholarship, each boy is sponsored by an individual or married couple at $15,000 a year. It isn’t at-a-distance checkbook charity. Both students and sponsors know each other and are in regular contact. Backing up the personal generosity of the sponsors are grants from more than 25 foundations. Five east coast Jesuit communities have given a combined total of more than $300,000. With a monthly mortgage of $25,000, plus the usual expenses, the academy is well short of being flush.
Much is owed to the self-giving 10 faculty members who are keeping intact the tradition of low salaries for Catholic school teachers. Several are former Jesuit Volunteer Corps members, well accustomed to penury. Some are in their 50s and 60s who taught elsewhere for decades but, still overloaded with pep, want to finish strong.
No Jesuits, alas, are in the classrooms. My suggestion to the school is to scrounge around to get some on the faculty. Start with the theological think tanks—Woodstock in Washington, Weston near Boston--and then hit up the colleges. Find a couple of Jesuits who need an airing out, especially those brainy ones loaded down with too many Ph.Ds and get them in front of 6th graders 12 hours a day.
It should be a matter of truth-in-advertising: yes, the Washington Jesuit academy does have teaching Jesuits. Bring in a dozen black robes and the school size can double. Plus, they’re free labor.