The publisher of The Newman Guide — a popular resource for students and parents seeking Catholic colleges that closely adhere to the Church's teachings — has merged with an organization that certifies the educational quality of K-12 schools. The move will be a boon for families who want a great Catholic education for their children, according to those involved with the merger.

The National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools (NAPCIS), which evaluates Catholic K-12 schools throughout the United States based on rigorous standards of excellence, announced Jan. 14 that it will now be a subsidiary of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), a noted nonprofit body that provides public recognition to schools providing faithful Catholic formation.

Dan Guernsey, executive director of NAPCIS and a senior fellow at The Cardinal Newman Society, described the formal merging of the two entities as “a marriage made for heaven.” The new alliance, he said, merges CNS’ trusted standards for Catholic identity with NAPCIS’ formal accreditation framework, creating a single, powerful validation for schools seeking to prove to parents both their academic excellence and their authentic Catholic mission.

The Cardinal Newman Society, since its founding in 1993, has earned a national reputation as a promoter and defender of faithful Catholic education. Its hallmark publication, The Newman Guide, like the Register’s annual “Catholic Identity College Guide,” has become a trusted resource for families seeking to identify authentically Catholic schools, colleges and curricula. CNS has expanded its guide in recent years to highlight the most faithful Catholic K-12 schools in addition to colleges and universities.

NAPCIS, meanwhile, says it currently has 87 member K-12 schools nationwide that serve 12,800 students. Under the newly announced merger, those schools will achieve “Newman Guide-Recommended” status while maintaining NAPCIS accreditation. All other “Newman Guide-Recommended” schools will then in turn have the option of NAPCIS accreditation, the announcement says.

“Parents can be confident that [a NAPCIS] school presents itself as a thoroughly faithful, dynamic, and active Catholic school. Not a Catholic school in name only, not a Catholic school that’s primarily focused on college prep. … All NAPCIS schools will now also meet the rigorous standards of The Cardinal Newman Society,” Guernsey told the Register.

How Accreditation Works

Nearly all Catholic schools in the United States are accredited, meaning they have the seal of approval of a third-party body that has examined the schools to ensure they measure up to various standards of excellence related to their curricula, academic rigor, business model, and other factors.

Accreditation is technically voluntary for schools; but in addition to being a powerful indicator of educational quality, accreditation is essential in many states for unlocking school-choice funds. In addition, many college scholarship programs only consider students from accredited institutions.

NAPCIS’ accreditation process for a Catholic school begins with the school conducting a comprehensive self-evaluation against NAPCIS’ educational principles, writing a narrative about how it meets the standards and assembling evidence. A visiting team of experts, alongside NAPCIS staff, then reviews the self-study and artifacts, and staff also interview teachers, board members and parents, often remotely. There’s also an on-site verification visit by a single expert, a one-day campus visit; the visitor observes classes and speaks with students, with the aim of confirming that the school’s lived reality matches its documentation.

Joining Forces

Under the new partnership, NAPCIS has moved its offices from California to the main facility of The Cardinal Newman Society in Virginia. NAPCIS retains its independent 501(c)(3) status under its own board of trustees, and although CNS now provides some funding and operational support to NAPCIS, most funding comes from member schools.

Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, called the partnership “a great moment for Catholic families.”

“Two leading organizations in the renewal of Catholic education are partnering to expand opportunities for both NAPCIS and Newman Guide-Recommended schools, which represent the best of Catholic formation,” Reilly said in the Jan. 14 press release.

“We have long admired NAPCIS under the decades-long leadership of [longtime executive director] Eileen Cubanski, and this new venture will continue her commitment to independent parent-led education as well as the renewed strength of Catholic parochial schools.”

‘Maximizing Freedom’

As an evaluator historically focused on independent K-12 Catholic schools, Guernsey said NAPCIS began working with the fiercely independent Catholic schools that emerged in the 1970s and ’80s — many of which were parent-led institutions that prized their autonomy. NAPCIS has long championed the Catholic principle of “subsidiarity” — the idea that matters ought to be handled at the proper level, ideally by the most local authority possible.

In practice, he said, this means NAPCIS works to help each school to achieve its own distinct vision. Rather than imposing a rigid, one-size-fits-all agenda, NAPCIS’ role is to provide public assurance that a school is successfully balancing faithful Catholic formation with academic quality and operational health and treating schools as partners to be supported rather than subjects to be scrutinized, Guernsey explained. The organization has a long history of accrediting schools of all forms and sizes, including many with fewer than 100 students.

“We want to really maximize the freedom of an educational institution to achieve its own vision and mission. We’re just providing assurances to the public that it’s doing what it says it does,” Guernsey said.

NAPCIS has the power to set its own accreditation standards independent of government agencies. That being said, some states, such as those with school-choice programs, do require schools to use a “state-approved” accreditor in order to grant private schools access to state programs or funding. Guernsey said NAPCIS seeks state approval only when such approval does not require them to change their standards or processes.

Thirty years on from its founding, NAPCIS has a proven track record, Guernsey said, adding that organization now offers its services to the “complete Catholic school market,” including larger diocesan and religious-run schools.

“Our offer of services is open to any Catholic school that is serious about its Catholic identity,” he said.

‘A Very Profound Role’

Holy Angels Academy in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the oldest independent Catholic schools in the country, is a Pre-K-to-12 school with a classical curriculum founded in 1973 that serves around 150 students. It has experienced rapid growth in recent years and attracted families from around Louisville and around the country, Principal Mike Swearingen told the Register.

Being independent allows the school to make staffing and curriculum decisions apart from any larger school district. That said, the school works closely with — but is not overseen by — the Archdiocese of Louisville, as any school that calls itself Catholic can only do so with the permission of the local Catholic ordinary, Swearingen noted.

Having worked with NAPCIS on accreditation, Swearingen said the school immediately understood the value of getting on The Cardinal Newman Society list as well. From the school’s perspective, he said, the accreditation process has definitely been improved in recent years through the online tools that Guernsey mentioned, but the process remains a rigorous way of ensuring that Catholic schools are not only passing on the Catholic faith, but also academically and organizationally excellent — as Swearingen put it, “cultivating improvements in students minds, bodies and souls.” At the same time, Swearingen said he appreciates that the school’s relationship with NAPCIS, in his experience, has been one of collaboration and not of confrontation.

Swearingen also said he appreciates NAPCIS’ emphasis on the foundational importance of Catholic schools striving to put Christ first — a priority which he sees as being at the heart of the accreditation process.

"We are fulfilling a very profound role in aiding the primary educators in the rearing of children,” Swearingen said.

More Great Catholic Schools on the Way

Guernsey said NAPCIS currently has roughly 50 schools going through its accreditation process, all of which — once successful in their NAPCIS accreditation — will have the chance to also gain “Newman Guide-Recommended” status, a powerful endorsement for Catholic parents.

Guernsey said: “We want to make sure that we can help Catholic families to have assurance that the school that they’re attending will be providing faithful Catholic education, academic quality and operational health.”