Through a plan called “Education Freedom Scholarships,” being promoted by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, $5 billion would be offered in federal tax credits for voluntary donations to state-based scholarship programs. According to some analysts, this measure can be an opportunity for families (who otherwise couldn’t afford it) to send their children to religious schools. Others view it as undermining public education.
Education
Posted inArts & Culture, Podcasts
America This Week: March 20, 2019
This week’s guest is Michael J. O’Loughlin, America’s national correspondent. We discuss his article “Meet the Vatican team running for the greater glory of God (and maybe the Olympics).” We also discuss these articles: The difficult questions Catholics need to ask after the college admissions scandal A Jesuit confesses his love for March Madness and NCAA basketball […]
Posted inFaith, Jesuitical
Meet Mireille Twayigira: Rwandan refugee, doctor, education advocate
This week, we talk with Mireille Twayigira, a Jesuit Refugee Service Education Advocate.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Can ‘privilege’ schools help the public good? Our history says yes.
The confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh and the video of Covington Catholic High School students have launched many discussions about privilege. But private schools in the U.S. have long furthered the cause of democracy.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
What comes after the era of the parochial school?
This week’s guest is America contributor Betsy Shirley. We discuss her article “The era of the parochial school is over. Meet the Catholic educators searching for what’s next.” We also discuss these articles: The Jesuit institution uncovering the truth (and fake news) about saints Pope Francis on Yemen, Venezuela and the abuse of nuns by […]
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Why keeping cellphones out of the classroom is a good spiritual practice
A theology professor decides there is no other option: Cell phones are incompatible with spiritual reflection.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Even at Catholic high schools, college is not for everyone
Catholic high schools should not be limited to the college-bound. In order to serve all communities, they must also serve students who wish to avoid college debt and to go straight into the workforce.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Centuries later, Jesuit missions in South America are still strengthening communities
A new study finds higher literacy rates and income levels in the areas around former Jesuit missions in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
The Class of 1943: Simone Weil, Jacques Maritain, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot
Alan Jacobs’s new book is a collage of the intellectual considerations of five thinkers who, in their experience of the violence of World War II and their revulsion at the fascism that fueled it, contemplate the nature of education and its renewal after the anticipated Allied victory.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Georgetown Prep president: Working for hope in a season of contempt
“In their efforts to be men who show respect, men who seek to serve, men who want to offer hope, our students offer witness that bad behavior and cynicism do not have to be the end of this story.”