Nowhere else in America have Catholic schools had a better chance to thrive in the last 18 years than in the city of Milwaukee.
In significant ways, that has happened. Catholic school enrollment has been more stable than in many other urban centers, and there are Catholic schools here that have done reasonably to more-than-reasonably well.
But, frankly, the Catholic roster of schools has problems and the system as a whole hasn’t shown the success anyone would want. Catholic leaders, to their credit, have been increasingly willing to say that.
Now they are moving to act. The Milwaukee Archdiocese is launching what leaders envision will be a four-year effort to establish more control over 26 generally smaller Catholic schools in the city and make changes aimed at improving quality.
Most of the changes are similar to improvement strategies for other schools and school systems: a big emphasis on high quality principals; increased training and mentoring of teachers; good use of data in shaping teaching; and effective oversight by boards both at the parish and archdiocese levels.
Much of the work will be behind-the-scenes: more centralized purchasing, better financial management and more professional personnel management.
But both Archdiocese officials and lay leaders involved in a task force shaping the effort are optimistic it will turn a loose system of schools, some of them poorly led, into a network that is more ambitious and more effective both in academics and in building religious identity.