Same with my parents ... four of us for 12 years. I paid for my Catholic college myself.

then why is he closing only poor schools in the inner city?

http://www.irishexaminerusa.com/mt/2013/01/15/shame_shame_on_the_new_york_ar.html

It is economics#2. The places where they are most needed is where the people cannot afford it.

So the church is all about economics instead of what´s right/ Shame on it. I will no longer give to the Cardinal´s Appeal if it´s only educating those who can afford private school. It´s forgotten its mission

My brother´s parish in Napa has a k-12 school and it has a waiting list. People put their kids in line before they are born. The education is beyond belief. And the parish helps families that can´t pay the full amount. Anything to keep their kids out of the dismal public schools.

As Catholic school kids, my brother and I always felt sorry for the kids in public school, and they weren´t that bad back in the day.

Part of the reason (at least for my area) is pure price. We have 3 Catholic high schools in the area, and the tuition is sky high. Over 13K per student, not including the books which we have to buy/rent ourselves.

Part of the reason is that the Church doesn´t have the labor pool of economical teachers that it once had (used to be a lot of nuns, with rulers and all). They are rare these days. And the teachers nowadays expect to me reasonably paid for their efforts.

Our catholic schools offer an excellent education but have become so expensive that many families just cannot afford it.

All three of us were educated in Catholic Schools 1-12. It was expensive for my parents back in the 70´s and 80´s, but they wouldn´t have it any other way. It is a shame it is out of reach for so many these days. The good sisters that educated us weren´t salaried like now. There aren´t that many nuns anymore,anyway.

Whatever the economic reasons, if the archdiocese had a heart it would only keep the schools in the areas where parents have no option.

My kids all went to elementary and/or middle school at our parish´s Catholic institution. Years ago when the state began paying for Charter schools, I saw the writing on the wall for religious schools. The state has created an alternate form of education, I believe intentionally, to be in direct competition with Catholic / religious schools. If you (as a parent) do not approve of a specific public school, you can either pay for a religious school or have the state pay for your child to go to a Charter school. The results have been as expected with a dramatic fall off in support of religious education. If the Catholic church wants to win this one, they should fund a massive legal effort to force the state to give parents the right to educate their kids at any location of their choosing.

I was educated in Catholic schools as well. You could depend on the quality, unwavering consistency no matter what Catholic school you attended. No more. In those days, we had an abundance of nuns, your average parish had at least three-four Masses on Sunday with pews full of reverent worshippers. These things were the norm. I also can´t help but respond to the good Cardinal that his inviting the ARDENTLY pro-abortion Obama for a seat of honor at the Smith dinner spoke volumes. Many devout Catholic families now find homeschooling preferable.

All of our children had a Catholic Education. It´s still a place where high expectations are assumed, religion is taught and good morals are the norm and expected.
The parish pays for 50% of the costs to educate the students, the Diocese and Parish will help those who cannot afford the tuition. It´s a safe place where kids can be kids, and they know the staff and other parents look out for them. We wouldn´t have it any other way.

I went to Catholic schools grades 8-12. It was an excellent quality education and the kids had discipline and learned to be respectful.

My old high school is closing after this year. Sad. It opened in 1965.

My younger children are educated with a Catholic homeschool program and when they reach 9th grade attend a Catholic high school in the Dallas Diocese. Tuition is $12,500 PER STUDENT, no discounts for more than 1 child. They do have tuition assistance but it the most they give is 50% and that´s with someone who is unemployed. It is a huge sacrifice for us and we´re a devout Catholic family, sadly this high school only has 30% of the student body Catholic because families just can´t afford it.

I do think the money needs to go with the child and not to a set building. Hubby and I are paying outrageous property taxes in Texas that go to our local public schools and yet our children have never and will never use them.

The Vatican Monarchy is doing well at the expense of the peasant Laity. It´s time for said Monarchy to give up its Gold and Silver in order to imitate the life-work of its founder, Jesus Christ, throughout His kingdom on earth. Stop building towers of "Babble" and start assembling Christianity.

Those awful Catholics.

How dare they not take care of everything that needs taking care of in this world while we Baptists and Lutherans and Methodists and Jews and Muslims and Hindus are out here doing the things we think are more important??!!

OP:

My husband and his four siblings are the products of Catholic schools. I wish my siblings and I had had the privilege of a Catholic school education. Public schools were still, well, sort of okay back in the 70s and 80s, though.

How about diverting some of the millions from tax supported muslim schools like FAME where the director is paid $336,000 annually to the Catholic School System. 45,000 muslim kids in 26 states study sharia compliments of the insane U.S. taxpayers.

Went to Catholic Schools 1st grade through freshman college and received a good education. At one point we had all of our kids in Catholic School but the nuns had gone almost half the kids were non-Catholic, religion class was relegated from daily to 3 times a week. The tuition rivaled that of college.

Eventually we had to pull our kids out. It wasn´t affordable anymore.

One problem for the inner city Catholic schools is that nobody seems to pay for anything. Paterson Catholic in NJ closed a couple of years ago and the big part is nobody was paying tuition. I went to Catholic grammar schools along with my 5 siblings and my father had to struggle to pay. My daughters went to Catholic grammar schools and are now in Catholic high schools. It is a sacrifice for my wife and me but we feel it is worth it.

There should be some level of sacrifice from the parents of the inner city kids. All too often they are on a free ride with the parents not doing anything to help. It isn´t true for all of them obviously but it is for many.

We can all help. Look into the NY archdiocese´s Inner City Scholarhip Fund. We sponsor a bright little girl who goes to school in the Bronx.

Catholic schools are by far education in the large cities (and most places) but as time has passed the people who caqn/will support the schools have left the inner cites and are now in the suburbs - money is getting scarcer every year.

2 reasons Catholic schools are dying out in inner cities:

1. There aren´t many kids in inner cities anymore. Most people who have kids move far away.

2. Inner city diocese are interested in redistributing wealth through tuition subsidies. For example, Catholic elementary school tuition in the SF Bay Area is about 50% more than surrounding areas in Northern California, but most of the students in the Bay Area pay a small percentage of the tuition because they get financial assistance from the diocese.