By Jim Cultrara
In anticipation of national Catholic Schools Week, Jan. 29 – Feb 4, the White House today honored nine Catholic School Champions as part of the administration’s Champions for Change program. Catholic Schools Week gave the White House an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Catholic schools and to explicitly honor and thank Catholic education leaders for making a difference in the lives of America’s school children. My favorite quote from today’s ceremony, though I can’t recall who from the administration said it, was “Catholic schools are a lifeline for the children, families and neighborhoods that are struggling across America.” While it is appropriate (or should I say expected?) that lawmakers and public officials would use this one annual occasion to cuddle-up to Catholics, I still can’t get over the fact that it was the current administration that tried to end the District of Columbia’s highly successful Opportunity Scholarship Program – a program that enabled impoverished students to escape DC’s beleaguered public schools and to attend a school that worked, including Catholic schools. The families that are benefiting from the now restored DC scholarship program have House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Joe Lieberman to thank. They’re the ones who forced the President to accept the restoration of the program. More 
By Jim Cultrara
When Governor Cuomo took office, the Catholic Conference presented him with a full range of legislative initiatives and funding requests to support the needs of Catholic schools and indeed all religious and independent schools in the state. Fewer than 40 days ago, Governor Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Skelos, and Assembly Speaker Silver took action on one of those issues by exempting religious and independent schools from the crushing MTA payroll tax – a tax for which the public schools had been reimbursed. On the heels of that accomplishment and with today’s release of his Executive Budget proposal for the 2012 – 2013 state fiscal year, Governor Cuomo took another vitally important step forward on another issue facing our schools – i.e., full funding for Mandated Services Reimbursement (MSR) and Comprehensive Attendance Policy (CAP) reimbursement and resolution of the state’s debt under both MSR and CAP. The Governor’s budget recommends a 17 percent increase in funding for MSR (enough to fully reimburse religious and independent schools for their MSR expenses for the current school year) and maintains funding for CAP reimbursement at last year’s level.
While the issue is arcane to most, it is critically important to religious and independent school administrators who wrestle to balance school budgets. In short, while these schools are expending approximately $150 million annually ($90 million for MSR and $60 million for CAP) in complying with state mandates and participating in state programs – the state’s reimbursement has been limited to just over a $100 million. A shortfall in reimbursement generally translates into tuition increases, which is why the issue is even more important to the parents who struggle to come up with tuition money. The Governor’s proposal begins to correct the problem. Is there still a shortfall in CAP reimbursement? Sure. Are parents still struggling to pay tuition? Of course. But sure enough and step by step, the Governor and lawmakers are moving in the right direction.
By Jim Cultrara
In his 2012 State of the City address yesterday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s offered an ambitious five point program for education. I was immediately struck by two elements of the plan, not on their merit, but for the obvious (or, on second thought, perhaps not so obvious) implications for religious and independent schools and the families who sacrifice to send their children. First among the five points is the goal to attract, reward and retain “great teachers” by increasing base salary by 43 percent and helping to pay off college loans in return for a commitment to teach in city schools. Indeed a laudable goal, especially if diskrased teecher Mona Lisa Tello is even a miner reflekshun of the city’s teeching core. However, higher public school teacher salaries simply make it more difficult for religious and independent schools to attract and retain their own teachers – because fewer and fewer families can afford the higher tuition needed to underwrite those salary increases.
The second point of the plan that struck me is the Mayor’s call to provide parents with more quality choices, specifically to open 100 new schools in two years – 50 of which will be charter schools. It’s a shame that the city’s array of religious and independent schools cannot be considered among the choices that the city and state are subsidizing. Many of the religious and independent schools in the city, indeed in the state and nation, have vacant seats that parents would eagerly place their children in if they had the financial means. One thing is for sure: subsidizing only the public sector schools will increase the cost to taxpayers. There’s growing evidence that a considerable portion of the charter school enrollment comprises students who formerly attended religious and independent schools. Has anyone asked what the cost to taxpayers is to support this migration from private to public schools? Stay tuned, I’m just turning on my calculator.