Catholic Education and the Common Core, Part 1

After attending a PTO meeting at our parish school last month where the adoption and implementation of the Common Core was discussed, I left with way more concerns than I arrived with.

The presenters showed a video (www.commoncoreworks.org) to explain "why" they're adopting the Common Core. They need uniform measuring sticks so that everyone can succeed in preparing for college or the work force, according to the video. So I asked if there was an issue in the past with subpar performance? No, I was assured, out students always out perform their public school peers when they get to middle or high school.

I also asked, what makes the parish school different than the public school if you're going to adopt the same standards? "Character development. We can tell the students, 'no, that's wrong.' They can't do that in the public school."

Administrators talked about how they are already meeting and surpassing the Common Core standards at the school, yet teachers talked about being intimidated by the standards and having to re-teach subjects and helping students through these "very hard" assignments.  There was no "dumbing-down" of what had been taught in the past, that's for sure...

Repeatedly we were told students need to taught the skills necessary to prepare them to succeed in life. Sometimes "success" was replaced with "go to college or get a good job." A repeated example used was that of the ability to count to 100...so that students could learn to manage money and balance a budget. But even that can be done in a Catholic way, we were informed - by using the animals that Noah led on to the Ark to count to 100. "They can't do that in the public school."

One parent raised the issue of a letter written by Professor Gerard Bradley at Notre Dame's School of Law and signed by over 100 Catholic professors and sent to each bishop in the Country, asking them to reconsider adoption of the Common Core in their diocesan schools. Neither the teachers nor the administrators had read it, but the teacher giving the presentation had a response to it, nonetheless.

I wasn't given an opportunity to follow up my questions or questions from other concerned parents, though I raised my hand to ask others. Eye contact was made by the speaker who then would continue talking in circles. I was being bullied by a 7 grade social studies teacher; she had the floor and wasn't going to relinquish it. Other parents raised questions and objections and were treated the same way - give a manilla answer and then talk in circles until we could move on to something else that she could talk about - like how the Common Core had been in use for over 5 years in another state where she used to teach; how Common Core is necessary so that students transferring in and out of school know what to expect and teachers know where those students should be on the "stairway" of learning - she used to have 60 students a year transfer in or out; counting to 100, managing a budget, higher standards so more students can succeed...repeat. The bully pulpit was being used to talk us into resignation.

I decided my questions were maybe too broad to ask in this format - what is the purpose of a Catholic Education? How does the Common Core further that?

So, for your consideration, I decided to write to following letter to the school principal and parish priest:

On Rights, Needs and Wants

First Things has an excellent article on Rights, Needs and Wants. Looking through the lens of the Supreme Court of New Mexico's decision that a photographer cannot refuse to shoot a gay so-called-wedding.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/justice-bosson-and-the-prostitution-of-religious-belief

A great unasked question:  To what degree is the "marriage" dependent upon a photographer being present?

Ten Years Gone

Author's note: this post is intended to be a kind of introduction to me, who I am, where I've been. I wrote it in the late summer/early fall of 2012 and never hit "publish." Hitting that button will mean I've conquered a fear - I've put something out there for all to see. Maybe it will be my only post. Who's to say?  At the beginning of the Led Zeppelin link below, Robert Plante explains that the band is in their eleventh year, so "the song's about a year out of date." Maybe I stalled for the right time, after all...

As we near World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janero (WYD Missions Week beginning July 17 in anticipation for the opening ceremonies on July 23), I think the post is timely again, though the timeline is now a year off and I've moved on from my picturesque private practice/county attorney position to a full time state employee in the energy law sector.

Pray for Pope Francis and the Pilgrims at WYD 2013!

This past (2012) summer, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to look back at events in my life - specifically, one event that set the course for the past ten years. One that I can't say where I'd be if it never happened.

Ten Years.  I had just graduated from high school. The Black Crowes and Jimmy Page had united for a cover of Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin's classic Ten Years Gone shortly before, and the rock stations that summer were playing both versions. Ten Years earlier, I'd only been eight, ten years later where would I be?

In spring of 2002 I had rejected a full-ride Air Force ROTC scholarship offer to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul in anticipation of an appointment and acceptance to the Air Force Academy. The Appointment came via Congressman James Oberstar, the acceptance never came from the Academy.

Ten Years, and $100,000.00 in student loans, later the full-ride rejection may look like a bad mistake. But in 2002 we were beginning a small war in Afghanistan that would grow and gown and continue to this day. Iraq was as distant in the future as it it in the past now. Ten years gone, where would I have served, where would I have fought. Who would I be?

Ten years ago, my father was an airline mechanic for Northwest Airlines "flying a desk" in the Minnesota Air National Guard. Ten years gone...Northwest Airlines too. Getting a pink slip from the airline, my father moved from the desk to the hangar as a mechanic on F16s and survived the insurgent's mortar fire at Ballad Air Base and the Taliban rockets at Kandahar. Ten years gone...thousands of lives too.

I rejected that ROTC scholarship and the "backup plan" was to go Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, MN and attend St. Mary's University. Maybe become a priest. Shocking stories were coming out of New England and the East Coast, then the West Coast, about the Church, priests, innocence, (mis)trust and abuse...luckily the priests I knew were good men and my family was supportive.  But by the time the bad news came from Colorado Springs I had given up the thought of the seminary. It was spring and there were girls and fun in the sun...  I hadn't committed to the Seminary, so I committed to the University thinking I'd try for another appointment or another ROTC scholarship next year. I had also committed to attend World Youth Day in Toronto, Ontario.

I had helped with the fundraising and went to the corny gatherings before the Pilgrimage. Sometime in late July I boarded a bus in Cromwell, MN and began heading east through Duluth, Marquette, Sault Ste. Marie, finally arriving in Toronto. It was in Toronto that I first experienced the universality of the Catholic Church. Hundreds of thousands of people, numerous languages...the sights, sounds, friendships with fellow pilgrims  riding the Toronto metro system, a Fr. Stan Fortuna concert, sitting through Catechesis sessions, daily Mass. The low point was being pick-pocketed and losing all my money one afternoon. My fellow pilgrims responded with charity, pitching in money until I had more than I lost...and refused to take it back!

The defining moment came on the last day of the pilgrimage, Mass with Pope John Paul II, but I should back up a bit. I had been moved by the Pope's arrival at the airport in Toronto earlier in the week. He landed at the airport in poor heath and under incredible media scrutiny. Remember the Long Lent had just broken a year ago and the clerical sex scandals hung heavily in the air. By July of 2002 it was the topic of conversation in regards to Catholics on the Continent.  Ten years gone, and the Church in America is still trying to recover, while the European Church has been recently rocked to its foundations by revelations of sexual abuse in their ranks.

The Pope had been told to exit Shepherd I on a elevated hydraulic platform, away from the view of the media. In a typical display of Polish Stubbornness (I can say that since I too have Polish heritage), John Paul II exited the airplane from the media-side staircase to the tarmac. I was miles away in Exhibition Place, watching the Pope struggle down the stairway. Along the way, the white zuchetto he was wearing blew off in the wind. Once he stepped to the ground, the priest with us muttered "the Pope has come to see us." I was  moved with emotion - for WYD would've gone on without him; his health was poor and this was evident from his struggles down the stairway- yet he had come - to be with the youth.

Two days later, Pope John Paul II came to see us at Exhibition Place. I don't honestly remember much about the welcoming ceremony and his speeches other than a lot of "J-P-2, we love you" chants met with a smile and the reply, "J-P-2 loves you!" I remember meeting a ground of pilgrims from a parish I had attended as a child in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the last time being in 1991, i remember being baffled at the praying of the Our Father in Latin (Pater Noster? what's that?).

Two days after that we walked in heat of the July sun in southern Ontario to Downsview Park for a Prayer Vigil and Sunday Mass with the Pope. I don't remember much about the prayer service, but I remember playing football afterward and a really bad concert which was intended to raise awareness for vocations. I had had told people (in all sincerity) that I was considering entering the seminary. That night a friend of mine, who was since become a nun, asked me if I was still interested in "The Sem." I told her yes and I would probably enter the Sem. I had been praying for a sign for some clarity and the general atmosphere of a Spirit-filled environment was probably "my sign."  Plus there was an incredible sense of interior peace I felt when I actually said "yes" to the question of entering the seminary, as opposed to the "maybe/it depends/i'll think about it" answers I had been rehearsing all week.

The next morning, Mass came and I received the "sign" I had been praying for, or maybe the confirmation. During the homily, John Paul II encourage the priest, religious and seminarians present, then to the rest of us he said, "if, in the depths of you hearts, you feel the same call to the priesthood or consecrated life, do not be afraid to follow Christ" and answer the call. In the depths of my heart, I heard the word, "seminary" in that statement and new I was called to follow Christ down this path to the Sem, so I followed. This was no-longer a "backup plan" - this was following His Will.

After two great years at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, MN, I left the program of priestly formation. A few months later, I met the girl I was called to marry. Two and a half years after WYD-Toronto, I found myself studying in Italy for a semester. I attended numerous Sunday Angelus prayers lead by John Paul II. By this point, he was physically a shell of his former self. He was in and out of the hospital, unable to speak in public. Some friends and I attended the Papal Masses on Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. John Paul II was too sick to celebrate these. Joseph Ratzinger took his place at the Easter Vigil and stood next to me and a friend in the darken nave of St. Peters, illuminated by the Easter Candle while the deacon chanted "Lumen Christi." I received the Easter Blessing of John Paul II and a few days later, stood with a handful of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square as we attended his last Wednesday Audience and received the last public blessing, as he grasped the podium in human frustration, a mind and a spirit bound by physical frailty, teaching us each how to die.

A few days after that, I was travelling in France, staying in a hotel in Nice, and watched the BBC and RAI announce the death of John Paul II. I stood for hours in the streets of Rome to bid farewell and came back to St. Peters for JPII's "last world youth day" - the funeral celebrated by the future Pope, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Throughout all this I was bemused that it had all started, in a sense, at the Shores of Lake Ontario. If I had not gone to World Youth Day in 2002, I wouldn't be where I am today. I probably would've reapplied to the Air Force Academy or ROTC. I never would have worked at the Catholic Youth Camp where I met the mother of my children.

Ten Years Gone-  I have a law degree, I've owned my own law firm, I was elected County State's Attorney, I served as Chairman of my Church's Parish Council. Those are nice successes, tings to be proud of.

Ten Years Gone- I am married to the most beautiful woman in the world. I've put on weight, lost hair and watch the hair left turning grey, she only gets more beautiful. We have three children, under the age of four. Sure they drive us crazy and keep us busy, but I can't imagine life without them or any other way. I always wanted to change the world and know that in the lives of these three kids, I already have.

Ten Years Gone - high school friends, flames and achievements have moved one and flickered. My love for the Minnesota Vikings has been replaced (after too many heartbreaks) by  fidelity to a baseball team on the verge of contraction in 2002 and won its first division title in 11 years later that summer. Since that 2002 season, my Twins have won division titles, and dwelt at the bottom of the barrel - but there's always hope.

Ten Years Gone - I no longer spend autumn in the woods of the Iron Range hunting whitetail and ruffed grouse. I walk the prairies and sloughs, flushing pheasants hoping to for roosters and long winters are warmed by following University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux hockey games. Heck, I even brew my own beer now!

I miss the lakes and forests of northern Minnesota, but this path I'm on, began at the shore of another Lake - where I heard a call. The reason I went to the seminary, wasn't the reason I stayed there, I left for yet another reason. I've been called farther down the path, yet it all started by that lake shore, following the same call.

I opened by saying I had felt nostalgic about WYD 2002. I printed off the addresses John Paul II had delivered. I thought the words had moved me then, how about now, ten years gone? I found hope and inspiration in re-reading his words. "We are not the sum of our own weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." Years gone by, and its easy to focus on my failures over the past decade - despite world successes, I focus on my weaknesses a lot, to the point of fear of moving forward in my work and in my call to be a husband and father. But, "no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the heart."

Ten Eleven years gone. The past is clear, but the future promises challenges, difficulties and struggles. Its enticing to return to the lake and rest in the familiarity, nostalgia and comfort. "Here on the shores of Lake Ontario...we are reminded of another lake, the Lake of Tiberius, on the shore of which the Lord Jesus made a fascinating proposal to the first disciples." The Gospel of John tells us Christ called these disciples away from the Lake to do His Work. He called me at the Lake in southern Ontario and I left too. The call doesn't stop once you leave - it continues. I've "returned" to the Lake but know I can't stay. Ten years have passed - eleven now - and I've gone a ways. I'm still following the call - as we all should - and so have a long way to go in "a world which need to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God's love... to change and improve the 'taste' of human history... to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world."