“Catholic education in the United States has reached a critical point in history and if it is to continue, it is necessary that major decisions be made by the Catholic community,” said Msgr. O’Neil C. D’Armour in his keynote address to the annual Teachers’ Institute at St. Joseph High School.

Msgr. D’Armour outlined the history of the Catholic school system last Friday in this country and emphasized the need for Catholic boards of education and the functions of such organizations in the areas of policy making and administration of the schools.

A crucial decision is that which concerns itself with the “structure pattern’ in Catholic education, a structure pattern which must include the whole Catholic community, he said. The board concept must be established within a coherent structure pattern or it will do great harm. Restructuring will involve a transfer of authority, and the process will be either revolutionary or evolutionary, he said. “A revolutionary transfer of authority would be a traumatic affair” he emphasized. If the process is evolutionary in nature, the extent and quality of the Catholic schooling “will open to the students the full and complete world of Christian faith.”

“It is upon the historical origin of the Catholic school system that critics today base their arguments of the phasing out of the system,” said Msgr. D’Armour. “The contention is that the circumstances that caused our forefathers to create the Catholic school no longer exist.”

The Catholic school system came into being “not because of any sophisticated philosophy of education, “or because it was an extension of the European experience of the immigrant community. It came into being as a reaction upon the culture and faith that was “threatened by the hostile Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority in this country at that time,” he said. Catholic people drew upon their meager resources, created a Catholic school system aided by religious communities which sprang up to staff the schools will competent and dedicated teachers, said Msgr. D’Armour.

In this historical context, viewing the authority structure which has characterized Catholic education, the Catholic and secular press have bitterly denounced the clerical and religious dominance of the schools. How could it have been otherwise? asked Msgr. D’Armour. “For the Catholics of those years, such dominance was the way things should be, indeed must be.”

“What of the future? Are there new circumstances that demand continuance of these schools?” Msgr. D’Armour asked. The Declaration on Christian Education formulated at Vatican II answers these questions, he said. “Every line is based upon the recognition of the increasingly dominate role being played by the school in our society.”

There has been a revolutionary change in the philosophy of education, said the Msgr. John Dewey, American philosopher, “caught the spirit of our times”. His premise was that education in the school is responsible for the total formation of the individual; that the school has a right and a duty to create an environment wherein the pupil will find a philosophy of life—that the school is to act independently of home and church. “School people have a powerful voice in the repatterning of society, and there is little evidence of the processes abating,” he said.

While the Catholic school system retains its validity, changed circumstances demand it be restructured in its policy making and administrative aspects, said Msgr. D’Armour. “There should be no such institution as a school that is simply ‘of the state’, ‘of the family’, or ‘of the church’. Control over schools must not be vested only in one society, but in all three, he noted.

American state education provides a model for the Catholic school system: the school board. The board system is a desired change and a system that provides an excellent instrument through which the total community is able to exercise its responsibilities in education all levels—parish, area, and diocesan. “And such a system” Msgr. D’Armour added, “is in accord with our philosophy and flows naturally from our culture.”

The board should represent the total constituent community of the school system; not just the bishop, the pastor, the diocesan superintendent of education, nor a particular clique of parents. It should be selected by a democratic process, he suggested, a method that would insure the representative nature.

The board should have complete control at its own level and not be subject to veto, the monsignor emphasized. “The local school board might be subject to a board at a higher level—to an area board, and certainly would be subject to the diocesan board which would be responsible for the whole system” he pointed out.

What functions would the board serve? Msgr. D’Armour would refer it to the suggested constitution outlined by the committee of the superintendents department of the NCEA. Some of the functions would include: implementing policies of the diocesan board, coordinating parochial educational activities, determining policies related to planning, operation, maintenance of facilities, responsibility for the annual budget, and as a planning and building committee for new educational facilities.

A board, Msgr. D’Armour said, will contribute most to the design end of good education when it designs policies that are specific enough to guide the administrator to exercise discretion in their application.” The board policies will be implemented according to the professional proficiency of the administrator, he said.

“This brings us to the first problem area—that of distinguishing between policy making and administration,” he said. “It is essential that they should make policies, but the superintendent or principal should implement these policies. The board should not interfere with the operation of the school, nor should the administrator of the school “attempt to thwart the board in which the community has vested its rights of education.”

“A problem peculiar to Catholic education, he said, “is that education, whether considered in a diocese or in a parish, is but a part of the total operation. There is constant danger that education because of its visibility will tend to demand too much and thus create and imbalance.” The establishing of boards of education might accentuate this, since in most parishes and diocese the boards of education would be the only truly representative body, and thus claim attention, he said.

A possible solution to his problem might be found by studying the constitution. A school would operate under a budget and the board would be responsible for this budget. A committee elected by parish societies would be responsible for the whole budget and the education budget allocated to the board.

Msgr. D’Armour noted a third problem area: that of “pastoral dimension.” This problem has two aspects: the reluctance of the bishop or local pastor to relinquish authority, and secondly, the difficulty of changing the “pastoral orientation of the school”. He said he did not consider the first part of the problem a serious matter.

“In spite of the aspersions cast upon their vision, training and intelligence by the John Leos and Robert Hoyts, I have found pastors to have an amazing insight into the need for restructuring and a true humility in divesting themselves of authority long held.” It will be more difficult, he said, to overcome the tendency to use the school as an adjunct to the parish. The board of education may be “the only instrument through which this obstacle to good education can be overcome.”

In this same area of “pastoral dimension”, principals obligated to give leadership to the Board are forced to sharpen their own thinking and examine with care their premises. “In the name of good education,” he said, “the principal is to have no real authority in policy-making.” Msgr. D’Armour considered the division of responsibilities as an improvement in education conditions.

Securing competent laymen willing to accept the role of leadership demanded by membership in boards of education is another difficulty faced in the restructuring of Catholic schools. It is one faced, too, by public education, and a risk that must be taken, said Msgr. D’Armour.

The scope of responsibility of the board of education should include all the educational activities of the parish or diocese, he said. “Only by placing policy-making for all of education—school, adult, catechetical and Newman—under a single board at the appropriate level can the resources of the Catholic community adequately be marshaled and the program balanced,” he said. “Such unification at the policy-making level must be reflected at the level of administration.”

The establishment of a parish board of education might be a transitional institution until area boards could be planned. “This matter must be weighed with care”, Msgr. D’Armour emphasized, “because whatever we decided will have profound effects upon the quality of education.”

“Christian truth can be made a part of life only if it is embodied in the total school experience. Catechetical classes while necessary in many circumstances remain inadequate even where much zeal and money are poured into them.” If we believe in the urgency of a Catholic education, we will find a way of providing that education,” he said.