Schools panel head: Catholic school changes long overdue

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia's announcement Friday that it will close 45 elementary schools and four high schools this year "should never have happened," said a critic well versed in the working of Catholic schools.

But that critic is neither a tearful mother nor an anxious teacher. He is John J. Quindlen, chairman of the 16-member blue-ribbon panel that recommended the 49 closings to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput last month.

He made the announcement alongside Chaput at Friday's packed news conference.

"A lot of this should have been done 10 years ago," Quindlen, a 1950 graduate of soon-to-be-shuttered West Catholic High, said in an interview afterward. But "naivete and an unwillingness to face reality" kept many pastors and archdiocesan leaders from halting long ago the "death spiral" of declining population and rising tuition at so many schools, he said.

"They would say, 'I can make this work,' " Quindlen said. "But we had to come along and finally say, 'God bless you, but this has got to stop.' "

Among the highlights and consequences of the plan:

29 percent of the archdiocese's elementary schools and 24 percent of its secondary schools will close in June.

More than 80 elementary schools serving 21,000 pupils will be affected, either closing or being consolidated in schools with new names and, in many cases, new administrators.

Between 1,500 and 1,700 teachers at schools soon to close or consolidate will be put out of work. Elementary school teachers must apply for employment at the consolidated schools; high school teachers, who are unionized, will follow a process based on seniority.

Distraught students, angry parents, and displaced teachers were quick to denounce the panel's sweeping recommendations as "callous" and "insensitive." But Quindlen, a former chief financial officer for DuPont Co., said the commission's "chief constituency" as it deliberated for 13 months was "the young parents who are starting their children in first grade, and who want to see them graduate eighth grade from the same school."

By closing and consolidating schools, establishing a new governance system for Catholic education, lobbying Pennsylvania lawmakers for school vouchers and more education tax credits that are used for scholarships, and creating a donor-based fund to support schools financially, closings of this magnitude "should never happen again," he said.