Book highlights one way to keep Catholic education affordable

With average per-pupil costs for a student attending a Catholic school today nearing $4,500 per year, the question of how to keep Catholic schools available and affordable, especially for the poor, has become extremely difficult to answer. In "More Than a Dream: How One School's Vision Is Changing the World," G. R. Kearney presents the story of the efforts of the Chicago province of Jesuits to answer that question.

The book tells the compelling story of how the first Cristo Rey high school began, its struggle for survival, and how it has grown into a national network of 19 Catholic high schools.

The story begins in 1991 when Father Brad Schaeffer became provincial of the Chicago province. Father Schaeffer believed that the Jesuits should serve the poor and thought this best done by establishing a Catholic high school in the Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. These neighborhoods of mostly Mexican immigrants living in poverty -- the average salary in the 1990s for a family of five was $20,000 -- was underserved by existing high schools. Father Schaeffer was unafraid to invest the province's financial and personnel resources into making the school successful.

Among Father Schaeffer's resources were the Chicago Jesuits who worked in the province's educational ministry to the poor in Peru. He convinced one of those men, Jesuit Father John P. Foley, to return to his native Chicago to head up the Cristo Rey project.

Father Foley, in turn, called upon other Jesuits and laypeople who had worked in the Peruvian projects to help him get the school started. The high school in Pilsen/Little Village opened in 1996 and today has inspired the creation of similar schools across the country, all following the financial and instructional model created during the formation of the original school.

One of the key innovations of the Cristo Rey schools is the Corporate Internship Program. Each student works one day a week at a job for a local company: five students share one job (this can vary). The money the students earn goes to the school to help pay for their tuition. (Additional funding is also required, and comes from a minimal tuition charged families and from energetic fundraising efforts.)

Another innovation was an instructional program geared to college preparation of the mostly bilingual students who on their arrival often could not read either Spanish or English well. The academic program has been very effective -- most students go on to college and do very well there.

The author, Kearney, was a volunteer teacher at the original Cristo Rey school for two years and he is a passionate and articulate supporter of the network. The book is filled with the stories of the founding members of the school: administration, teachers and students. This emphasis on stories, while captivating at times, also proves to be a major distraction: Too many stories containing too much information (much of it unrelated) distract the reader from the main story of how the Cristo Rey network came to be. The book's other major weaknesses are the writer's dependence upon cliches and his continual repetition of information previously presented.

That said, the book is an enjoyable read and tells an exciting story of a creative effort that may change the future of Catholic education. I highly recommend it for everyone, but especially for everyone who works in or cares about the Catholic school. Money from each book sold goes to support the Cristo Rey network.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops