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As we enter into 2019, we also look back on the past year and our 18 biggest stories and blog posts. 

Early last month, four Alliance for Catholic Education Teaching Fellows (ACE 24) – Emma Solak, Anna Bourjaily, Megan Koerber, and Tyler Schilly – presented at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention in Houston.

When Ricky Austin read the 2005 Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Education report during his second year as an ACE Teaching Fellow, he was startled and inspired. Catholic schools were at an inflection point. They were closing at an alarming rate, and without intervention, they could disappear entirely from inner cities. Austin, now the director of programs and communications at the Aim Higher Foundation in Minnesota, felt a stirring in his heart as he read the conclusion of the report: “Will it be said of our generation that we abandoned [Catholic schools,] these powerful instruments of justice that provide educational opportunity and hope for families otherwise trapped in poverty?”

ACE Teaching Fellows graduate Brent Modak (ACE 18 - Denver) is the first to remind someone that, while teachers teach subjects, they first and foremost teach students. While teaching social studies and religion both in and beyond his time in ACE, Brent discovered he often had answers to students’ content-specific questions. A question about the text? No problem. He would help the student engage in a reading strategy he had learned in his social studies methods courses. A question about a student’s literacy acquisition? He’d revisit his notes and come to a reasonable explanation. But when a student confronted him with a social or emotional concern like stress or anxiety, he would find himself at a total loss for answers.

The Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI), part of the Alliance for Catholic Education’s Catholic School Advantage, is a collaborative initiative in which Catholic schools seek to engage and serve Latino communities.