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Dr. John Staud, senior director for pastoral formation and administration at the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), was interviewed Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, on the national Catholic radio broadcast, the Son Rise Morning Show.

He described ACE's plans to use its own upcoming 20th anniversary as a way to celebrate the gift of Catholic schools across the country. Catholic schools, which ACE has been blessed to serve since 1993, are good for children, including under-served children, and they also make important contributions to communities, the Church, and society at large, according to Staud's several-minute conversation with the show's host, Brian Patrick.

Plans for the 20th anniversary celebration are outlined in a recent University of Notre Dame news release.

The Son Rise Morning Show is heard on more than 180 Catholic radio stations around the country, as well as on SiriusXM Radio and the Internet.

Within you will find stories from ACE Advocates for Catholic Schools members who have reflected on this year's Catholic Schools Week theme, "Raise the Standards" and the role it has played on the people who have been impacted by a Catholic school. Click below to continue:

Catholic Schools Week - 2013

Friends of the Alliance for Catholic Education—graduates, partners, benefactors, faculty and staff, other supporters, and children whom ACE has been blessed to serve—assembled on the evening of Jan. 24 to launch an unprecedented celebration of the gift of Catholic schools.

Plans for the wide-ranging celebration, spanning about 18 months and including events in dozens of cities around the nation as well as locally, were outlined in a news announcement made earlier in the day.

But the short-term agenda for the evening’s festivities was to celebrate, with a Mass and reception, the community and shared mission that have energized ACE since 1993. That founding date makes this a 20^th anniversary year for ACE. The Thursday event, convening about 160 people, reflected the ACE movement’s enduring love for Catholic schools that bring hope to under-served children.

At Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Rev. Lou DelFra, C.S.C., director of spiritual life for ACE, pointed to love as the unchanging centerpiece of the mission to sustain, strengthen, and transform Catholic schools. In his homily for the vigil of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, Father Lou said the Lord’s love provides grounding for the whole ACE family as it prepares for the activities of a cross-country celebration.

“We need to start here, at the still-point,” which is “the love of God for us that never changes,” Father Lou told those gathered in observation of the feast that highlights St. Paul, a great evangelizer. The love of God, reflected in the ceaseless generosity of Jesus, is the part of our lives “that gives us the courage and the confidence to engage the world.”

Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., co-founder of ACE and a concelebrant in the Mass, prayed in gratitude for the University of Notre Dame and for the members of the ACE family, and he prayed for continued outreach in loving service to all children for whom the "need of a decent education” has not yet been met.

Concelebrating along with Father Scully and Father DelFra were Rev. Joseph Carey, C.S.C., ACE’s chaplain; Rev. Joseph Corpora, C.S.C., director of university-school partnerships; Rev. Thomas Doyle, C.S.C., a Fellow of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives; Rev. Dan Groody, C.S.C., who has assisted in ACE’s Catholic School Advantage campaign; and Rev. Richard Warner, C.S.C., Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross. The joy of the Mass was enhanced by the singing of the student choir from St. Adalbert School in South Bend.

Following this start of the celebration of Catholic schools, a reception in the Remick Commons at Carole Sandner Hall, ACE’s home on campus, featured Irish music, lively conversation, and food including a 20^th anniversary cake.

The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) is planning a cross-country celebration of Catholic schools that will mark ACE’s 20 years of service to under-served children and to the Church’s mission of educating hearts and minds.

“Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Schools” is the message that will literally roll out from the Notre Dame campus this fall, when ACE leaders, faculty and staff will travel by bus to events in nearly 50 cities, advancing their mission to sustain, strengthen, and transform Catholic schools.

Spanning the 2013-14 academic year, the bus tour will be part of a 20th anniversary campaign highlighting the contributions that Catholic schools make to the rich education landscape in America and to civic society generally. An ACE-themed bus will visit communities where ACE has been privileged to send forth faith-filled teachers and school leaders, as well as enter into a variety of innovative partnerships, since it was founded in 1993 by Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., and Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C.

“We want to express our gratitude to the teachers, leaders, students, and families that enable Catholic schools to develop the God-given talents of each child, and we hope to draw greater attention to the amazing legacy and bright future of these schools that form engaged citizens and advance the common good,” Father Scully said. “After 20 years of providential growth that has allowed the Alliance for Catholic Education to work with so many communities, dioceses, schools and partners, we want to stand alongside them to renew our commitment to serve more children and families through Catholic schools.”

An array of events are scheduled at Notre Dame and across the country to convene supporters of Catholic schools to pray together, to honor local leaders, and to celebrate the profound contributions of Catholic schools for the Church and the nation. To reflect ACE’s work in scores of dioceses, a specially outfitted tour bus, provided by a generous benefactor, will bring a Notre Dame presence to cities big and small—from New York and Washington, D.C., to Tampa, Tucson and Dallas; from Baton Rouge and Memphis to Chicago, Stockton and Los Angeles.

The bus tour will come home to the Notre Dame campus for events on the weekend of the Notre Dame-Navy football game in early November to commemorate the first ACE recruiting meeting, on Nov. 4, 1993, when students learned of a new opportunity to serve as teachers in under-resourced Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Those students constituted the “ACE 1” cohort and began their preparation for teaching following their graduation from Notre Dame, in the summer of 1994. The “ACE 20” cohort, consisting of about 90 graduates competitively selected from colleges and universities across the United States, begins its two-year formation experience this summer.

Segments of the bus tour will continue in spring 2014, and the broader celebration will culminate that summer.

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, notes ACE’s strong connection to the University’s values: "The mission of the Alliance for Catholic Education uniquely embodies the University's mission to ‘create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.’”

Learn more about the upcoming celebration at a special section of the ACE website: http://ace.nd.edu/20. See ACE’s digital annual report at http://ace.nd.edu/annualreport, and visit the Institute for Educational Initiatives website to explore Notre Dame’s broad commitment to the future of children and schooling. More information is available by visiting Carole Sandner Hall, home of ACE on the Notre Dame campus, near the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the Main Building and the Grotto.

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The Archdiocese of Milwaukee this week announced a partnership with ACE Consulting to review 26 of the city's urban Catholic schools, as reported in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The article reported that Kathleen Cepelka, superintendent of archdiocesan schools, believes the endeavor will help provide more high-quality Catholic education to more students.