Happy About Vouchers

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, Dec. 31 — A report released last month by Rand Corp., an independent research organization, tracks a high level of satisfaction among parents who have used scholarships to enroll children in private schools, says the St. Louis daily. The report condensed findings from numerous studies.

Rand found that parents using the vouchers perceive private schools to have superior academic programs and better discipline. The report also backs earlier claims that black students on scholarship at private schools in New York and Washington are performing better than their counterparts in public school.

Trusting God

DETROIT FREE PRESS, Jan. 4 — Michigan Gov. John Engler signed legislation Dec. 21 that encourages the display of the national motto, “In God We Trust,” in public buildings, including schools.

The American Family Association of Michigan, a group that promotes Christian values, has been asking districts to display posters with the motto over a picture of the American flag.

Results have been mixed. For example, reporter Laura Potts wrote that one district “plans to consider diversity in opinion about whether to display the motto before making a decision.”

Lebanon Dreams

THE CATHOLIC SENTINEL, Jan. 4 — A Lebanese priest is leading a campaign to keep Christianity vital in his homeland, reports the newspaper of the Portland, Ore., archdiocese.

Maronite Rite Father John Trad, 85, served his first priestly assignments at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Barhalioun in northern Lebanon, helping to build a small school there 56 years ago.

He is now raising funds to put the finishing touches on a new school for the 400-year-old parish. “Lebanon is like an island inside the Muslim world,” said Father Trad. “If Christians lose Lebanon, it means Christians will have lost the land of Christ.”

Kmiec Keeps Ks Coming

INSIDE CUA ONLINE, Jan. 4 — The Catholic University of America Law School's new dead, Douglas W. Kmiec is one of the nation's leading experts on constitutional law. He is a leading legal commentator on television, radio and in newspapers and magazines.

He's also a dad with a penchant for the letter K.

The dean and his wife, Carol, are the parents of five children, all of whose first names begin with “K”: Keenan, Katherine, Kiley, Kolleen and Kloe. “Besides the alliterative ‘K,’ “ he says, “we gave each of our children the name of an ancestor — a family patron as it were — to sustain a continuity with the past. The name, Keenan, for example, which we gave to our firstborn, is my wife's maiden name, and since she was one of nine children, there is now an entire clan looking out for his interests.”

Work-Study

SCHOOL REFORM NEWS, January — A unique work-study program initiated by Chicago Jesuits in which inner-city students finance most of their education by sharing entry-level clerical jobs at local businesses is an idea that is going national, according to the newsletter that focuses on innovation in education.

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School for boys, founded in 1996 in a largely Mexican neighborhood with a 65% teen dropout rate, has inspired Silicon Valley venture capitalist B.J. Cassin to fund studies by Catholic educators on the feasibility of employing the Cristo Rey model in five other cities.

Working through a nonprofit company, the Cristo Rey students earn salaries to defer the cost of tuition from financial, insurance, and law firms by working in part-time clerical jobs.