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Sandy Flaherty, freshman religion teacher and director of Catholic identity at Mercy High School in Burlingame, talks with Mercy students Bianca Deranieri and Alexa Almes. Flaherty recently wrote a resource for parents on the importance of Catholic education. (Photo by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)
January 17, 2019
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
Catholic schools face a challenging landscape today. Nationwide, Catholic schools have closed due to declining enrollment, higher tuition costs, and increased competition from public and private schools.
The stiff competition offered to Catholic schools by public and other private institutions provides a new opportunity to explain the distinctive nature of Catholic education to prospective parents. “Why Choose Catholic Education,” written by Sandy Flaherty, the director of Catholic identity at Mercy High School in Burlingame, makes a strong case for the theological foundations of Catholic education as the unique reason for its advantages over other options. The book will soon be published by the National Catholic Educational Association.
Flaherty told Catholic San Francisco that she wanted to communicate an overview of Catholicism to prospective parents, because “that’s what makes Catholic education really unique, its theological underpinnings and its vision of life and how we interact with the world.”
At the core of that vision is the theological understanding of the dignity of the person, created in the image of God, and everything that follows from that: transcendence, the unique value of the person, the divinization of humanity and the holiness of the world through the Incarnation.
While many parents traditionally have chosen Catholic schools for values and the safe environment they provide, Catholic schools have to do more to distinguish themselves from their new competition in the 21st century. According to the National Catholic Educational Association, between 2008 and 2018 more than a thousand Catholic schools across the country closed, while enrollment nationally dropped by 435,000.
Flaherty believes the key for Catholic education’s distinctiveness lies in realizing “we belong to a beautiful, extraordinary religion.” By recommitting to their Catholic identity, Flaherty said, schools can distinguish themselves powerfully from other educational competitors.
“Why Choose Catholic Education” is a book that Flaherty wrote to make the case for Catholic education to parents. She wanted them to know “what we do at Mercy,” but present it in a way “to people who aren’t theologically trained.”
Founded by the Sisters of Mercy, the all-girls high school has 397 students and expresses the Mercy Sisters’ commitment to Catholicism and social justice.
Because of the Catholic Church’s troubles and scandals, Flaherty said, “people think it’s going to affect admissions if you push forward your Catholic identity. It’s actually been the opposite.”
Mercy High’s unequivocal identity as “Catholic, steeped in the Mercy tradition,” lets parents know clearly what values their children will receive, both inside and outside the classroom, by choosing a Catholic education.
Diving into the school’s Catholic identity has had benefits for the Mercy faculty and staff as well, Flaherty said, with internal discussions about balancing academic rigor with the need to educate the whole person, or on Catholic teaching about the transcendent aspect of human beings.
“We’ve had a lot of important conversations come out of it,” she said.
In the school, liturgical celebrations like the opening day Mass mark significant days for the school community, and a popular monthly chapel visit program for silent prayer helps show the permeation of everyday life by the divine.
Mercy also emphasizes that the divine life can also be recognized outside liturgies.
“All of our arts teachers are very interested in how the arts expand the human spirit and can be a vehicle for the divine,” she said.
Catholic education can also challenge the culture, and form students for more than a race to build resumes and get into competitive colleges.
“All that’s really important, but that’s not the totality of what a human being is,” she said.
Students also are encouraged to put their education into practice by serving the poor and marginalized in their communities. Before graduation, students need to complete 88 hours of service, which includes direct service encounters to the marginalized, along with attending lectures on an issue the Sisters of Mercy have identified as a critical concern, such as anti-racism, nonviolence, immigration and women’s equality.
By learning about these issues, Flaherty writes, students understand the Catholic perspective on current events and can “understand the root causes of social injustice and how to work toward change.”
An education that focuses only on how well children can perform “can be disheartening and disillusioning” for young people. By promoting a vision of the person as someone who possesses inherent dignity, independent of her achievements, Flaherty said, Catholic schools can “show they were created for more than society dictates to them.”