| Shortly after I heard about President Bush's | | | | school with a roller skating rink that was later |
| proposal for Pell Grants for low-income children to | | | | converted into the cafeteria. |
| attend parochial schools, I finished reading More | | | | Cristo Rey ran deficits in excess of $1 million for |
| than a Dream: The Christo Rey Story, a | | | | its first five years in operation, but Jesuit clerics |
| inspirational book about the founding of the first | | | | and Jesuit school alumni from the business |
| Cristo Rey Jesuit high school in Chicago's Pilsen | | | | community stayed the course. |
| Little Village neighborhood. | | | | I doubt politicians and voters would have been |
| More than a Dream is a history of the challenges | | | | equally patient with a public charter school that |
| that Jesuit leaders and Jesuit school alumni faced | | | | had an equal number of students. |
| twelve years ago. Cristo Rey started with a | | | | Today, Cristo Rey is among 30 high schools in 19 |
| focus on its neighborhood, to educate low income | | | | cities run by the national Cristo Rey Network. The |
| Hispanic high school students while charging their | | | | Nativity Miguel Network, a similar venture, has 64 |
| families little to no tuition. Instead of being charged | | | | members, mostly middle schools. Both are |
| full tuition, students would be required to work | | | | excellent models for delivering an education to low |
| one day a week in a corporate sponsored | | | | income students in cities that have a corporate |
| internship program and sign their wages over to | | | | community large enough to support the internship |
| the school. In addition to the work-study | | | | program. For instance, close to my home, the |
| arrangement, Cristo Rey taught non-language arts | | | | Network opened the first new Catholic school in |
| courses: social studies, science, religion and arts in | | | | Newark since 1964, welcoming 105 students in |
| Spanish so that students could learn these | | | | September 2007. Newark was the best city for |
| subjects in their stronger language. Cristo Rey | | | | the Network to open a new school in New |
| also attempted to bridge school and work with | | | | Jersey; it has the largest corporate and university |
| orientations as well as experiential learning. Since | | | | community among the state's urban centers, and |
| 1997, the first Cristo Rey school has had | | | | the larger corporations, especially Prudential, are |
| tremendous success in getting low-income | | | | stand-out contributors to social services and |
| students into Jesuit and state supported colleges. | | | | economic development in the city. |
| However, this school grew from meager | | | | One cannot help but be awed by the |
| beginnings. It did not admit freshman at first, as a | | | | determination and accomplishments of the Cristo |
| promise not to place other Chicago-area Catholic | | | | Rey Network. |
| schools at a competitive disadvantage; it also | | | | It also makes me wonder why other parochial |
| scheduled entrance examinations on different | | | | school educators have approached President Bush |
| dates from the other schools. It did not admit | | | | for fiscal relief, when there are so many lessons |
| students who had criminal records, or special | | | | about fundraising, leadership and academic |
| needs, as public schools must do, and it had a | | | | programming to be learned from the Cristo Rey |
| very modest facility, a closed Catholic middle | | | | story. |