Catholic schools revving up advocacy

by Renée Stoeckle

I remember the feeling I got the first time I saw this photograph, which captures two of my heroes, Fr. Ted Hesburgh and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing arm in arm singing “We Shall Overcome” at a civil rights rally in 1963. Two men, two faith leaders responding to their call as ministers and Americans, radically aware of how faith and civic engagement go hand in hand. It is a powerful embodiment of what Pope Francis tells us: “an authentic faith always implies a deep desire to change the world.”

I’d walk by this photograph hundreds of times over the years as a student at Notre Dame, each time glancing over and allowing myself a small “atta girl” moment – affirmation that, despite struggle and hardship, my faith as a Catholic and my work in the Church meant I was part of something bigger.

As a Catholic, my faith didn’t just imply activism; it required it.

When I joined the school choice movement three years ago, I came with a deep desire to activate the Catholic faithful around this cause. The Church couldn’t be more clear on her teaching about school choice: parents are the primary educators of their children, they have an innate right to decide how and where their child is educated, through educational options and opportunity AND Catholics have a duty to advocate for and ensure all parents have this right.

We launched the Rising Tide Initiative two years ago with the intent of sharing those teachings with the Catholic faithful in Florida. We aimed to create a space where believers could become advocates. For 26 months, we crisscrossed the state holding focus groups, touring schools and speaking into every microphone we could find, sharing this message of Catholic school choice – the call to access and inclusion – and the ways Florida’s choice programs were helping schools answer that call.

Last week, we reached a milestone. We gathered a committed group of fellow believers for the first annual Rising Tide Initiative Leadership Summit. In a small board room, 20 Catholic school visionaries – pastors, principals, superintendents and school leaders – gathered over two days to discuss the current state of Florida’s Catholic schools. Then they discerned initiatives, strategies and even legislative agenda items that would improve the situation.

This next level of engagement is just beginning. The Church teaches that advocacy is not just the responsibility of parents and teachers, but of all members of the Catholic community. As the primary educators of their children, parents have the right to choose the school best suited for them. But the entire Catholic community should advocate for parental school choice and personal and corporate tax credits, which will help parents fulfill their responsibility in educating their children. Sparking this community-wide effort is our goal.

There is good reason why this is happening in Florida.

As Catholic school supporters know, the decades-long decline in Catholic school enrollment tragically continues across most of America. This, despite irrefutable evidence that Catholic schools have delivered top-notch education for generations, and molded tens of millions of model American citizens. But in Florida, Catholic school enrollment has stabilized, and even begun to tick back up. School choice is a big reason why, with a diverse array of state-supported scholarship programs giving roughly 300,000 Pre-K students access to private schools,

This turnaround in Florida has happened quietly, without Catholic school champions fully spotlighting what Catholic schools offer as a high-quality complement to public education.

Imagine what a little advocacy in the Sunshine State will do.

Imagine what school choice and a little advocacy could do across the country.

Experts from Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog and administers four state scholarship programs, gave us a hand. They led workshops to train participants in methods of advocacy including working with the media, writing op-eds, hosting lawmaker visits, testifying before the legislature and organizing parents. It was the first gathering of its kind where the school choice movement brought together those on the front lines of Catholic schools and asked for their input and ideas, then provided direct supports to help bring those ideas to fruition.

Participants reported feeling empowered by the summit and expressed a deep desire to engage. “The Catholic cause for choice is clear,” one said. “The idea of advocacy seems intimidating but knowing the resources that are out there and the call of the Church, I know I need to be involved.” Another expressed feeling validated when asked to tell her story. “I never thought of us as having a story to tell,” she said. “But I realize that we do and that we need to be heard.”

The summit closed with Mass on Tuesday evening with Christ’s famous words from the Apostle Mark: “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” Indeed, the work of school choice is daunting, but if last week was any indication, Catholic schools are full of faithful laborers eager to take on the cause.