At first the rise of charter schools\u201d\u201dto 7,000 today from 1,900 in 2000\u201d\u201dwas thought to be the nail in the coffin for Catholic education, which had been in decline for decades. Charters offer many of the same strengths as Catholic schools: order, kindness, discipline, high expectations (ideas initially borrowed from parochial institutions). But because charters are publicly funded, families don\u2019t have to pay tuition. How could Catholic schools possibly compete with that?<\/p>\n
Within the past few years, however, the borrowing has begun to go in the other direction, as Catholic schools poach staff from charter networks, draw from the same donors, and model their operations on charter successes. America\u2019s usual miracle-workers\u201d\u201dcompetition, civil society, entrepreneurial wealth and philanthropy\u201d\u201dhave come to the rescue of religious education.<\/p>\n
Consider the Partnership for Inner-city Education, a nonprofit formed in 2010 to take responsibility for six Catholic schools serving disadvantaged children in Harlem and the South Bronx. The chairman of the Partnership\u2019s board is Russ Carson, an equity-capital pioneer who also helped build KIPP charter schools in New York. Mr. Carson and fellow donors put millions of dollars into upgrading the campuses of these six Catholic schools.<\/p>\n