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The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) has announced and welcomed the members of its newest cohort of teachers joining ACE Teaching Fellows—a group of ninety-six recent college graduates who have distinguished themselves with a record of academic achievement, dedication to serving marginalized communities, and zeal for empowering children through Catholic schools.

This year’s ACE class includes graduates from top colleges and universities around the country—including Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, and Georgetown—eighteen varsity athletes, and twenty-four teachers who served as resident assistants during their undergraduate careers. ACE welcomes graduates from eleven new partner universities, including the University of Ottawa, Wofford College, and the University of Oklahoma.

Through their two-year teaching fellowship, each member will earn a fully-funded graduate degree from Notre Dame while serving as a classroom teacher in one of ACE’s partner schools and living in an intentional community with other ACE Teachers. ACE partners with more than 100 Catholic schools serving marginalized populations in more than 30 cities throughout the country. Since the program’s launch in 1993, ACE has formed nearly 1,400 such teachers—approximately 76% remain in K–12 education, while others have gone on to successful careers in business, engineering, medicine, law, and the academy.

“The cornerstone of ACE's work has always been the formation of educational leaders who have the knowledge and zeal to do whatever it takes to help place marginalized children firmly on the path to college and heaven,” John Schoenig, ACE’s director of teacher formation and education policy, said. “This new cohort of ACE Teachers is a tremendous sign of hope for the communities, schools, and, most importantly, children that we are entrusted to serve. These students only get one chance at a great education, and we're very confident that ACE 22 will strive everyday to make that a reality.”

When Aleta Atonda first learned about Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) Program, her daughter Roseanna was attending a failing public school in Tucson that was on the verge of closing its doors. Aleta had for years wanted to send her daughter to the local Catholic school, St. John the Evangelist, and ESA finally gave her that chance.

“We wouldn’t even have considered sending Roseanna to St. John the Evangelist without ESA,” Aleta, whose second-grade daughter attends one of the Notre Dame ACE Academies in Tucson, Arizona, said. “I’ve wanted to send her to St. John’s a few times in the past, but didn’t think it was possible. When I found out about ESA, I jumped at the opportunity.”

ESA strives to provide education choice for some of Arizona’s most underserved communities—those with learning disabilities, those attending ‘D’ or ‘F’ schools, and recently, those living on Indian Reservations. For Roseanna, a new school has meant a drastic shift in her academics, and her overall outlook on school.

“Roseanna has flourished at St. John’s thanks to the support of her family and especially her mom,” Roseanna’s second-grade teacher Stephanie House said. “Her family’s commitment to her success and the strong culture at St. John’s has enabled her to go from below grade level to on or above grade level. Most of all, I hear from Roseanna and her family that she is happy and able to live out her faith as part of the St. John’s community.”

The mission of the Notre Dame ACE Academies says it strives to place children on the path to “college and heaven,” and those at St. John’s said Roseanna is on her way down that path.

“Roseanna has demonstrated academic growth and an enthusiasm to learn,” development director Dene Hummon said. Hummon helped the Atondas through the ESA application process. “She will be a first generation college student.”

Aleta agreed that her daughter has embraced her new school and community.

“Roseanna’s attitude is different. She loves coming to school and is enthusiastic to attend. She is doing outstanding compared to last year, and she is demonstrating learning at home.”

The Empowerment Scholarship Account Program is giving parents the ability to choose the education they believe is right for their children, and for the Atondas, St. John the Evangelist is providing that education. When asked about her favorite part of school, Roseanna’s answer could not have been clearer.

“Everything!”

 A veteran teacher summed up the challenge for today’s teachers in a Washington Post story about poverty’s ravaging effects in America’s classrooms. Besides teaching, she said, they have to serve as “counselor, therapist, doctor, parent, [and] attorney.”

That’s one diagnosis underlying a concept called “full-service community schools.” The Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Community Schools describes this concept as a set of partnerships between a school and other community resources that integrates academics with an array of services, supports, and opportunities to improve student learning.  According to the Coalition, about 5,000 community schools currently assemble and host these partnerships in various ways.

“A mantra within the community schools movement is, ‘no two alike,’ which emphasizes how each one responds to the specific needs and assets of the community through collaborations with health care providers, social service agencies, and other organizations serving at-risk children and families,” said Andrew Remick, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives.

“In general, these schools report an impressive list of benefits for both students and the school community,” Remick said. “Test scores and attendance rates are higher, and the students have better access to health care and more engagement in school activities. There’s also higher teacher and parent engagement, and educators say they can devote more time to instruction thanks to the additional supports that address students’ non-academic needs.”  

In light of these metrics of human well-being, at least one category of community schools deserves a closer look. Catholic schools formally adopting the model number only in the dozens, with approximately 20 belonging to a Boston-based initiative called “City Connects in Catholic Schools.”

Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and its Center for Optimized Student Support have helped to support this local group of inner-city Catholic elementary schools since about 2008. A few schools in southern Ohio have also adopted the model.

Catholic educators familiar with the operations in Boston schools say the structure works well, and the overall concept of a school as a neighborhood hub of services dates back at least to the 1980s when several contemporary models began to emerge, such as the Children's Aid Society Community Schools and "Beacon” community centers, both based in New York City; “City Connects” in Boston; and the Virginia-based Communities in Schools, which has affiliates in  26 states.

Even without adopting these models, Catholic schools may have developed ways to provide what “City Connects” calls “optimized student support,” said Remick. “Holistically serving children and their families is part of the DNA of a Catholic school community.” But the structure can make a difference, and educators in Boston say their schools have learned and benefited.

“We do develop the whole child, including the faith component,” said Maryann Manfredonia, principal of East Boston Central Catholic School, which partners with City Connects. The specific structure and protocols of this community school model carry a price tag but are “a natural fit” with her team of educators.

Daily challenges seem inevitable at East Boston Central Catholic, being the only parochial school in that disadvantaged section of Boston, now serving a largely Latino student population. It benefits from an array of services, such as community health centers, other medical experts, social service agencies, and local law enforcement.

“It does take a village,” said Sr. Patricia McCarthy, C.S.J., referring to the need for partnerships that both tap into government-funded support and maximize collaborations within school walls. McCarthy, a former principal of a Catholic school, testifies she saw the “City Connects” approach yield dividends, academically and otherwise, for students, teachers, and the school.

“Behavior problems were reduced or eliminated, and teachers were able to spend their time dealing with the academics and the faith life of the school because we already knew who needed some help,” said Sr. McCarthy.

The key is good teamwork starting inside the school, she explained. A principal sets the tone by encouraging teachers’ cooperation. Even more vitally, teachers work closely with an on-staff counselor or “school site coordinator,” who often has to be shared by two Catholic schools because of tight budgets.

A centerpiece of the “community schools” model, this coordinator works with every teacher to harvest insights into every student—test scores, medical issues, behavioral problems, and more. Coordinators update the information digitally, and use it to identify children who need special attention. As Sr. McCarthy observed, information leads to action: the coordinator reaches out to all the local resources best suited to address each child’s circumstances.

“It takes everyone working together—the principal, faculty, parents, and students,” said Sr. McCarthy.

Manfredonia pointed out that a well-trained coordinator who knows the community’s resources, shares best practices with others coordinators, and stays at a school for years can create change as an integral colleague.

The non-academic obstacles to learning cited in the aforementioned Washington Post story of Jan. 16, 2015 cry out for positive change. The article highlighted a Southern Education Foundation study that found a majority of U.S. public school students now come from families in poverty.

Supporters of a full-service approach cite one big problem restraining the strategy’s adoption in inner-city Catholic schools.

“Funding is always a very difficult issue,” said Manfredonia. Generous assistance from Boston’s Catholic Schools Foundation allowed Catholic schools to hire coordinators as problem-solvers during the start-up years, but ongoing employee costs bump up against strained budgets.

Remick said full-service community school models offer a constructive way for Catholic schools to respond to the myriad out-of-school factors impacting student learning. “Certainly there are many Catholic schools that already connect their students and families with additional resources even if they do not call themselves a ‘full-service school.’ Nevertheless, a better awareness of these strategies among Catholic educators may open doors to new funding sources and opportunities for partnerships with local agencies to provide more effective support.” 

As Brendan Bell prepared to offer the invocation at this year’s Commencement Ceremony, he looked to the past, but also to the future, urging his fellow classmates to think about how they will carry Notre Dame’s mission out to the world.

‘[The invocation] focuses a lot on taking the things we've been given here and gifts that we may already have, and really channeling them in a purposeful way to make God known, loved, and served in as many capacities as possible," Bell said.

A member of multiple honors societies, a former intern for senators from the United States and Ireland, and carrying a 3.98 GPA as he ends his time at Notre Dame, Bell said he wants to give thanks for all the opportunities that he and his fellow classmates have been given.

"The first part of the invocation is just an expression of gratitude, and I think that's really what my whole Notre Dame experience has been, just one big expression of gratitude," he said. "I just feel extremely thankful. That was something that I wanted to touch on."

After completing his finals, the invocation was Bell's final responsibility before he joins the Alliance for Catholic Education's twenty-second cohort of teachers in June. After a summer of education classes, Bell will head to Sacramento, California to teach social studies at Cristo Rey High School.

"The whole process of thinking about what I wanted to do [after graduation], and ACE in particular, was asking, 'how do I see myself finding joy in my life, but also having a purpose, and how I can bring my talents and my skills to something much greater than myself?' That's what really brought me to ACE in particular; it just seemed like a fantastic opportunity to do that, precisely.

Bell's efforts throughout his time at Notre Dame have focused on the world of politics—he majored in Political Science and has interned for Senator Mark Daly in Dublin, Ireland, and Senator Bob Casey, Jr., in Washington, D.C. He also spent the summer before his senior year as a research intern at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in the nation's capital. But Bell said that it was moving away from the political sphere that really drew him to ACE.

"It's a really new experience, it's different, and in my heart, I felt like I wanted to be stretched in a different way," he said. "I think that going down to D.C. and my internships were really important because I got a clearer picture of those experiences and what those places were like.

"As I worked my way through the last year, I started trying to blend my interests together a little bit more—interest in schools and education, and interests in policy. Last summer was a really good marriage of those interests."

Bell will teach juniors and seniors at Cristo Rey High School in Sacramento, including courses in U.S. History, Government, and Economics. He said he wants to impart on his students that learning is not simply about knowing information for a test.

"For me, teaching is about thinking about what you're going to present as not only material that [students] will pocket and know for a test, but how they can internalize that and think about how they see themselves, and how they want to be as men and women as well."

While the first part of his invocation expresses gratitude for all that Notre Dame has given him during his four years as a student, he said he will keep the second part in his mind as he prepares to serve in ACE, and hopes his fellow students will keep it on their minds as they choose their path after graduation.

"I just hope my fellow classmates and I consider how we can pursue not only a job and a career, but a vocation."

Nicole McNeil, Notre Dame's ACE Associate Professor of Psychology—along with her colleagues at the nonprofit research agency West Ed—received a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which aims to improve students' mathematical achievement in elementary school and beyond.

The new grant—the largest and latest grant awarded to McNeil’s work—will allow a large-scale trial of an educational intervention McNeil and her CLAD Lab research team have developed to boost math learning by helping students grasp the concept of mathematical equivalence. Such a concept undergirds problem solving reflected in a statement like “two plus two equals four.”

“The problem starts with basic arithmetic where students develop a misunderstanding of the equal sign,” McNeil said in a video produced by the NBC network in collaboration with Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) in 2013.

The lessons and activities she proposes for elementary schools—to change students’ learning about mathematical equivalence—have been used successfully at Santa Cruz Catholic School, a Notre Dame ACE Academies school serving inner-city children in Tucson. Several second grade ACE Teachers from around the country served as participants in the pilot study and helped refine McNeil’s approaches.

Following up on IES grants of $761,000 and $565,000 that supported her innovations since 2007, the IES awarded the latest round of funding for McNeil's research in expectation that the intervention will help address America's low international ranking in mathematical competence.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) also funds McNeil’s work in mathematical cognition through a five-year “CAREER” grant, providing approximately $750,000 over five years. These grants have been called NSF’s “most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.”

As part of the NSF grant, McNeil is conducting a longitudinal study to see if a better understanding of math equivalence in the second grade leads to greater success in mathematics later on, especially algebra readiness in the sixth grade. She is also working to identify which skills in kindergarten provide an early foundation for future learning of math equivalence.

McNeil directs Notre Dame’s interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in Education, Schooling, and Society, and she is a fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, which houses the minor as well as the Alliance for Catholic Education. The Institute strives to improve the education of all youth, particularly the disadvantaged.