The Alliance for Catholic Education: how this programme supports Catholic schools in the USA (2007–2020+)

Abstract

The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) celebrates 25 years of service to Catholic schools in the United States. ACE began as an effort to provide teachers to under-resourced schools, soon after expanding to include Principal preparation. As the landscape and needs of Catholic education have changed, ACE has expanded its reach to include a wide range of formation programmes designed to strengthen and sustain Catholic education. Programmes have a notable impact on individual participants, schools, and on Catholic education more broadly within the United States.

Keywords:

• Alliance for Catholic Education
• university partnership
• United States

Notes on contributors

Monica Kowalski is the Associate Director of Program Evaluation and Research for the Institute for Educational Initiatives. She is also a faculty member of the ACE Teaching Fellows programme, where she teaches elementary methods, educational psychology, and supervises teachers.

Kati Macaluso is the Director of ACE Advocates, a unit of the Alliance for Catholic Education charged with the strategic engagement of ACE graduates in sustaining, strengthening, and transforming Catholic schools. She also serves as Faculty of Supervision and Instruction in ACE’s M.Ed. Program, and co-teaches the middle and high school English Language Arts methods sequence.

Gina Navoa Svarovsky is the Director of Program Evaluation and Research for the Institute for Educational Initiatives and a faculty member for the Notre Dame Center for STEM Education.

Notes

1 For example, the population of American nuns dropped from a peak of 181,421 in 1965 to 92,107 in 1995, according to a review by Stark and Finke (2000). Reasons for the decline include changes in the economic landscape and female work force opportunities, reactions to Vatican II changes to the Church, and the rise of the laity.

2 The USCCB is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

3 Development in spirituality is nurtured in the programme in several ways, including through daily opportunities for Mass in the summer, organised community prayer experiences, retreats, and reflections throughout the duration of the service experience.

4 For example, a school may agree upon the values of service and respect for all people.

5 Of these 337, Remick Leadership Programme graduates, 144 are male and 193 are female. On average, 16% of the graduates come from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. Of the 213 that are current school/district/diocesan leaders, 114 serve in elementary schools, 63 in secondary schools, and 28 are school network/district/diocesan leaders. 1 graduate leads a school serving students with special needs. In contrast to the early stages of Catholic education in American history, 8 leaders are ordained religious, while the remaining 207 are lay.

6 Brinig and Garnett (2014) explain: ‘Nationwide, over 1,600 Catholic schools have closed in the past two decades, displacing more than 300,000 students.’

7 Research from the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame (Guzman, Palacios, and Deliyannides 2012) concluded, ‘The focus groups conducted in seven US cities convey a clear and consistent message: Latino Catholics value Catholic education but they perceive the cost to be prohibitive’ (p.63). More research is needed to assess if this situation is changing in the United States.

8 ACE researchers have developed a draft of a survey based on a framework of Catholic education outlined by DelFra et al. (2017) entitled Education in a Catholic Key. The survey instrument is being piloted in 2019.

9 It should be noted that the scope of this article only includes internal evaluation of the work of ACE. As part of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame, ACE has undergone external reviews, most recently in 2015. However, ACE has not been extensively formally evaluated by external researchers or agencies outside of standard University protocol.