Parents of Catholic children in the Milwaukee are at a face off with the Milwaukee archbishop over implementing Common Core standards in Catholic schools, a sign that the controversial standards are not limited to public schools.continue at The Blaze
A letter, from Milwaukee Catholic Parents Against Common Core, this week demonstrated the parents are not backing away to Reverend Jerome E. Listecki, the Archbishop of Milwaukee, who called the petition from more than 1,000 parents “insulting at best.”
“The standards of our Catholic schools far exceed the Common Core standards,”Listecki’s June 9 letter responding to the parents’ petition said. “And, parents already are welcome to review any and all aspects of our schools curriculum, but to think that parents are more qualified than our academic experts to select said curriculum is ridiculous.”
The archbishop stated, ““Quite frankly, I am at a loss as to what more I can say about this topic.””
In the parents follow up letter to the archbishop on June 16, they stated that information from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee clearly stated the schools were moving toward Common Core.
It should be stated that the archdiocese has specifically forbidden academic experts from speaking on church property who do not support the Common Core standard(well they aren't academic experts if they don't completely agree with the archdiocese apparently). I think everything he has said on the matter seems to fan the flames on this rather than put them out. If there's nothing to be afraid of, why forbid speakers? Why not in addition to condemning parents and opponents of the standard, reiterate their role as primary educators? It's silly to only be the shepherd of diocesan school families. I quite frankly agree with part of what he says, that we should trust the expertise of the archdiocesan staff. Common Core isn't the source of bad liturgy in diocesan schools, or lack of Catholic devotions, or even poorly taught religious education, for example. But taking this weird antagonistic, chest puffing approach to the whole thing I just don't understand.
Update:
NCRegister picked up the story as well
2 comments:
The archbishop said,
"Catholic schools operate in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee under my direction. Period. To think that I would allow anything to jeopardize the Catholic identity or academic excellence of our schools is insulting, at best."
How's the Catholic scene over at Marquette U.? 100% orthodox theology? What about the LBGTQ group on campus? To think that our Catholic schools are 100% doctrinally sound is insulting, at best. Take a survey of Catholic students at ANY local Catholic high school on basic catechetical questions and see what kind of results you come up with.
While I would not disagree with anything else that was put in Anonymous' post, I do have to object to the final aspect. A lot more goes into things than whether or not a student can answer basic catechetical questions. To insist that they simply are not receiving an orthodox education in the classroom is very over-stated. Admittedly in many classes they aren't, but we have to realize that there are a lot of places to get bad education or no education in the Faith between the day one is born and the day one walks into a Catholic High School.
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