Bishop Lynch Reflects on the Visit to Tampa
Written by Bishop Robert Lynch from the Diocese of St. Peterburg
Last week we welcomed the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) to Tampa and St. Petersburg. To celebrate ACE’s 20th anniversary, its leaders are traveling the country to visit Catholic schools in more than 50 cities, a tour to celebrate Catholic education and honor its many champions. ACE is the brainchild of Holy Cross Fathers Sean McGraw and Timothy Scully, who dreamed up a strategy to recruit talented students (many from the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s, but hailing from numerous other excellent colleges, too) to serve for two years in low-income Catholic schools around the nation. With the support of Americorps, ACE accepts ninety new teachers each year. They undergo intensive formation during two full summers at Notre Dame, including classroom work and hands-on teaching experiences. During the school year, they fan out around the country to teach in Catholic schools. As part of their participation in ACE, they earn a M.Ed. degree from Notre Dame.
The Diocese of St. Petersburg currently has eight ACE teachers working at St. Petersburg Catholic, Sacred Heart in Pinellas Park, Holy Family in St. Petersburg, St. Joseph's in West Tampa, Incarnation in Tampa, and at Tampa Catholic High School.
Fathers Scully and McGraw fashioned another “dream” of a slightly longer program to prepare transformational leaders to serve as principals and school leaders for Catholic schools. ACE offers a Master's Degree in Educational Administration through the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, which has prepared more than 400 leaders to date. What I like best about this innovative approach is that it gives a local church like ours a "bench" which we did not previously have from which to cull the best candidates to administer our Catholic schools. Now St. Leo University has put in place a similar program and some of our better candidates are attending it as well. All because dreams do occasionally come true if the “dreamer” evinces patience, perseverance and prayer.
But Fathers Scully and McGraw thankfully did not stop their dreaming and with the generous assistance of the Walton Family Foundation, they began a third initiative, the Notre Dame ACE Academies. At this moment this new university-school partnership exists only in the dioceses of Tucson and St. Petersburg. In our diocese, Sacred Heart in Pinellas Park and St. Joseph's in West Tampa are part of the transformational school network. What’s all this about?
Well, the ACE team at the University of Notre Dame identifies schools that are on "life-support" financially and enrollment-wise, and where they believe there might be the opportunity to turn things around. The Notre Dame ACE Academy model takes advantage of public funding for parental choice. At the moment a tuition tax credit program is operating in Arizona, and in Florida the "Step-up for Students" program offers corporations the opportunity to contribute a portion of what they would owe the state for corporate income taxes to a separate organization that then provides tuition assistance to qualifying low-income parents. If the school looks ripe for "Step-up for Students" tuition scholarships, then, in partnership with the diocese, the management of the school is turned over to a board led by ACE which focuses on creating a strong school culture infused with Catholic identity and improving students’ academic achievement. As a matter of fact, the Notre Dame ACE Academies has this mantra: "Our goals: College and Heaven." In one year, both Sacred Heart and St. Joseph have been taken off "life-support. Each has seen significantly increased enrollment and test scores that reflect students’ strong academic progress.
Most Rev. Robert N. Lynch has served the Diocese of St. Petersburg as Bishop for the past 16 years. You can follow his blog at http://bishopsblog.dosp.org/