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Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) sends talented young teachers to serve children in under-resourced Catholic schools around the country, and these caring educators pursue many initiatives during their formation.

At conferences and at the local, state, and even national levels, ACE Teaching Fellows participants are being recognized for their outstanding work in (and out of) the classroom and the gifts they bring to a school and community.

Below we celebrate some of the accomplishments of our ACE 18 graduates:

Dominic Fanelli received two outstanding awards during his time teaching middle school math at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Baton Rouge. In the spring of 2013, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany for the upcoming year. Additionally, Dominic was honored by his faculty in receiving the Brotherhood Award. Voted on by the teachers, the recipient is someone who treats others with respect, exhibits integrity, and is involved in the community. “This was an honor for me to receive and a highlight of my two years at Sacred Heart,” said Fanelli.

Maura Shea, who served as a high school English teacher at Ascension Catholic in Plaquemine, LA, was voted High School Teacher of the Year for the Parochial Schools in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. The award is sponsored annually by the Knights of Columbus.

Students of Meghan McDermott, at Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School in Corpus Christi, Texas, voted her into the ranks of Teacher of the Week. That honor is bestowed regularly by a local radio station, 96.5 FM. “The radio DJ surprised me in my classroom, and they announced my name on the radio all week,” recalls McDermott regarding the salute she received in March 2013. “It was a very exciting event for the whole school, and all the kids loved hearing Bishop Garriga’s name announced throughout the week.”

Meaghan Crowley, ACE Denver, and Kevin Kimberly, ACE Memphis, were each awarded the Charles Redd Center K-12 Teaching Western History Award. This award is given for innovative lesson planning and teaching of lessons related to the American West. Meaghan and Kevin presented their award-winning lesson plans at the Western History Association conference held in Denver. Brent Modak, ACE Denver, in collaboration with the Library of Congress, also presented at this conference on the importance and implementation of primary sources in education.

Ann Marie Ferry, ACE Mission, presented a lesson at the 60^th Annual Texas Conference for the Social Studies. She created a lesson in which students “examine the role of the Texas economy in the world.” Ferry, who taught middle school social studies and religion at St. Joseph School in Mission, Texas, explained that the lesson entailed “differentiated instruction, as well as extending and refining previous knowledge of the causal relationship between the geography of place and economic activity.”

In conjunction with ACE faculty member Lori Crawford-Dixon and ACE graduates Tara Carey, Jeannine DiCarlantonio, and Ann Ferrello, ACE Atlanta teacher Michele Monk presented at the Annual Convention and World Languages Expo. The group spoke on “K-5 Curriculum and Resources: An Adaptable Model for Instruction.” The presentation aimed to give K-5 foreign language teachers a set of units based on key themes, with accompanying course outcomes, a sample lesson plan and course calendar, and other resources.

Desiree Jerez was invited in May to make a presentation as part of Oklahoma City Archdiocesan Professionals Day. A teacher at St. Philip Neri School in Oklahoma City, Jerez introduced fellow educators to classroom management techniques found in books by Rick Morris and Doug Lemov. Her talk was titled “Quick, Easy, and Simple Changes that Increase Instruction Time.”

We congratulate these and all members of ACE 18 who will participate in ACE’s annual Commencement exercises on July 13, 2013 at the University of Notre Dame.

From June 14 to19, ACE’s Program for Educational Access (PEA) hosted its fifth annual Parental Choice Symposium (PCS), a six-day series of workshops on the moral, legal, legislative, and policy aspects of voucher and scholarship tax credit programs. This conference brought together 26 participants from 15 states, including school presidents, teachers, executive directors of private scholarship funds, doctoral students, parent advocates, and other emerging education reform leaders.

Participants convened in Milwaukee, home of the nation’s first publicly funded private school choice program. Some of the preeminent advocates for parental choice—individuals who have dedicated much of their professional lives to improving educational opportunities for low income families—described the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP).

Two of the presenters were Dr. Howard Fuller, the architect of the MPCP, and Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), an organization that educates elected officials and supports reform-minded candidates for public office. Fuller, who previously served as the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, is the chair and co-founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), in addition to serving as director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning (ITL) at Marquette University. Williams formerly served as a non-resident senior fellow at Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank, and worked as an education journalist for the New York Daily News and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is author of Cheating our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education.

Jason Crye, the executive director of Hispanics for School Choice and a member of this year’s PCS cohort, described the Milwaukee sessions this way:

“The Milwaukee portion of the ACE Parental Choice Symposium afforded me the opportunity to learn about the development of the nation's largest and oldest parental choice program from the people who have been involved from the very beginning. It was also beneficial to hear my fellow participants' reactions to the parental choice story in Wisconsin; their diverse backgrounds helped me to consider parental choice in new and interesting ways. The engaging presentations and deep conversations reinvigorated my desire to work for education reform, and I am confident that the relationships formed during the symposium will be a resource for years to come.”

On June 16, the group traveled to Tampa, Florida, where participants had the opportunity to engage an equally outstanding line-up of presenters, including Dr. Tony Bennett, Florida’s Commissioner of Education and a founding member and current chair of Chiefs for Change. He delivered a keynote address on designing, enacting, and implementing a school choice program. Prior to assuming his new role, Bennett served as Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction and oversaw the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, the nation's most expansive school voucher program.

The group also had the opportunity to work closely with the leadership team from Step Up For Students, the nation’s largest scholarship granting organization. Step Up chairman John Kirtley opened the Tampa sessions with a reflection on the questions and themes that have inspired the growth of Step Up since its inception. After establishing a foundation to give Florida families scholarships to private schools in 1998, Kirtley petitioned, and ultimately persuaded, the state legislature to create a statewide tax credit scholarship program three years later. Because of Kirtley’s foresight and dedication, Step Up For Students now provides tax credit scholarships to nearly 60,000 low-income students.

Elizabeth Toomey, director of communications at the Children’s Scholarship Fund, the only national K-8 scholarship organization in the country, spoke of the benefits of the Symposium and how informative the Step Up model is for her work. “Hearing from a top-notch group of leaders in the parental choice movement and getting to know the other PCS participants over six days and two cities was invaluable,” she said. “Working for a scholarship organization, I found the presentations by the Step Up for Students team in Tampa especially instructive, and it was impressive to learn about Step Up’s evolution from a small private program to a statewide tax credit scholarship program.”

The 2014 Parental Choice Symposium is tentatively scheduled for June 13-18. Applications will become available in October. For additional information, please contact Matt Gelchion (; 574-631-2549).

The “ACE Summer” of 2013 is in full swing on campus as the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) once again hosts more than 300 participants in programs preparing tomorrow’s leaders for Catholic schools.

Intensive coursework and vibrant opportunities for community life and spiritual growth are enriching many recent college graduates from around the country who have come to campus for ACE’s distinctive formation of Catholic school teachers. That initiative is now starting its 20^th year of operation.  

In a related ACE program, more experienced teachers are taking courses to become Catholic school principals and sharing experiences that embody the same values in education, community, and spirituality. Other Catholic school teachers are receiving focused preparation in “English as New Language” (ENL) or “Teaching Exceptional Children” (TEC) skills that will help make their classrooms more inclusionary for students.

These varied participants, living on campus during all or part of the June-July peak season, are invited regularly to come together for Mass and meals, as well as other forms of prayer and fellowship. The season builds toward two annual highlights—the ACE Commencement ceremonies, set this year for July 13, and the ACE Missioning ceremonies, on July 25-26 this year, when the faith-filled educators are sent forth to numerous partnership sites, often tasked to serve disadvantaged children in under-resourced schools.

This summer’s keynote speaker at the ACE Commencement exercises will be U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who is a Notre Dame graduate. Among the participants in the ACE Teaching Fellows formation program for Catholic school teachers, 85 graduates are expected to receive Master of Education (M. Ed.) from Notre Dame at the Commencement. The University also expects to confer 26 M.A. degrees in educational administration to graduates of the curriculum preparing Catholic school teachers, namely ACE’s Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program. Special awards will go to ACE graduates who have continued in education careers and are making big contributions through their service to Catholic schools.

The Missioning ceremonies will culminate in a Mass on July 26 in Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis as the invited presider. The Archbishop will join ACE founder Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., in sending forth 173 participants in ACE Teaching Fellows and 48 participants in the Remick Leadership Program to spend the regular 2013-2014 school year serving in Catholic schools around the country even as they continue in their two-year curricula and other formation.

Teachers enrolled in the TEC and ENL inclusionary initiatives, which are one-year programs leading to licensure and eligibility for certification, also will end their portions of the ACE summer by going back to the schools where they customarily serve and resuming their coursework online. Enrollments in the 2013-2014 initiatives to serve children with mild to moderate disabilities (TEC) and young English-language learners (ENL) have expanded. Some 24 educators are starting their TEC studies this summer (up 85% from last year), and the ENL program is welcoming 42 participants (up about 130%), including teachers from Puerto Rico and Chile.  

ACE Summers include a variety of activities beyond the strictly academic, such as retreat opportunities for the formation program participants and a number of conferences on key topics in Catholic education, attracting to campus diverse groups of leaders who serve children and share ACE’s mission of sustaining, strengthening, and transforming Catholic schools.

The summer is reliably a busy time of ongoing programs and new initiatives for all members of the ACE community. Aspiring teachers in the “ACE 20” cohort, which comprises the 90 newest participants in the ACE Teaching Fellows program, may be especially aware that the “20” moniker foretells a 20^th anniversary celebration set to begin soon.

ACE has said it plans to mark the anniversary—of its founding in 1993 and the missioning of its first cohort of teachers in 1994—with a celebration of Catholic schools that will span the 2013-2014 academic year. Notre Dame’s Fighting for Our Children’s Future National Bus Tour will launch in October, with plans to visit Catholic schools, along with their communities of supporters and ACE partners, in more than 40 cities nationwide.  

For more information: Bill Schmitt 574.631.3893

Nationwide, students from under-served communities and schools lag behind the national average in standardized tests. This is called the achievement gap. 

One class at St. John the Evangelist Catholic School, a Notre Dame ACE Academy, proves this gap can be closed: In 2010, the class average in math for St. John’s 3rd graders was at the 17th percentile. Two years later, as 5th graders, they are at the 52nd percentile. They now outperform the national average (above).

While older students are closing the gap, the younger students don’t experience a gap at all. Students in all three Tucson partner schools are consistently posting higher achievement scores year after year (right). 

In fact, Notre Dame ACE Academies' youngest students are among the highest achieving in the nation. In 2013, kindergarteners scored in the 86th percentile in math and the 91st percentile in reading. 

Notre Dame ACE Academies teachers are changing children’s lives. As 3rd grade teacher Adela Dinwiddie said of one St. John's student: 

“Miguel started the last school year reading in the 40th percentile. By the end of the year, he was all the way to the 79th, and he’s already talking about where he wants to go to college!”

Scores reported here are from the Spring 2013 Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). Download a print version of this data.

The year of faith is a celebration of our calling to follow Christ and how we can come to know Jesus in our commitment to the ACE community and Catholic Schools. Our prayer is that we can learn to find Jesus in the ordinary and routine things of our lives.

One of the first places a visitor sees on the Notre Dame campus is the Eck Visitors Center. A statue of St. André Bessette stands there as if to show that everyone is welcome. St. André was a Holy Cross Brother who lived a simple life as a doorkeeper at a school in Montreal. His superiors assigned him to this duty because he had not had much education; they thought doorkeeping was all he could do. He graciously accepted this as a ministry of telling people that God loved them.

This was the message of good news that everyone needed to hear. We continue to need this message in our lives. St. André proclaimed it by his welcome, patience, non-judgmental attitude, and loving acceptance of every person. He loved everyone like Christ. There were so many people who came to see him that the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal was built; the visitors wanted to be in the presence, and hear the message of, this holy man who became a saint.

We can learn much about living our faith and knowing Jesus if we read stories of the lives of saints. St. André reflected Jesus through hospitality. Hospitality and loving students is what a teacher can teach every day. This leads young people to Jesus.   Here are two stories that illustrate the point of how hospitality can lead someone to know they are loved and discover Christ.

An ACE teacher was teaching one morning, and, after a while, a little fourth grader came up to her and hugged her. The child whispered to her, “My mother was dead when I went into her bedroom this morning.” The teacher was shocked and could not think of a word to say, so she did what was natural. She hugged the little girl, told her she loved her, and walked her to the principal’s office.

Another ACE teacher had a boy in her second class who was very disruptive. She went home every day and felt that she was failing the student as well as all his classmates. She thought this was her cross to carry. Part of her teaching was to prepare her students to make their First Communion. The mother of the problem student gave the teacher a letter on the day of the First Communion that read, “Thank you for loving my son. He loves you and appreciates you very much. He is excited to be united with Jesus in Communion.”

Both of these teachers, in the ordinary events of teaching days, did extraordinary things for their students. They were trying to be Christ the Teacher for their students. To do this, they had to know Jesus, act like him, and love the students. A way to do this is to be hospitable and provide a welcoming atmosphere for students. Jesus opened his heart and loved everyone. Hospitality helps a teacher to do the same. Students are in the process of learning; but as young as they are, they know what love looks like. The little girl whose mother died could go to her teacher and feel loved, and the disruptive boy was able to experience love even when he was his worst self.

Teachers show hospitality by opening their hearts to students. The students feel it, their hearts are cracked open, and they love back. If a teacher wonders about how to be Christ the Teacher, just be aware of the example of a saint like St. André Bessette and provide hospitality. Your love will make a difference in your life and help you and your students discover Jesus.