Putting Education to Work

July 15, 2014
A markedly positive account of a growing network of highschools designed to help poor urban youth prepare for college.Freelance journalist and former U.S. Catholic magazineeditor Sweas produces a sequel to G.R. Kearney's More Than a Dream (2008), which told the story of the first school in the network, Cristo Rey Jesuit HighSchool in Chicago. From that beginning in 1996, the Cristo Rey network nowincludes 28 college-prep schools in cities across the country. Although theschools are Catholic, students need not be, but they must be from low-incomefamilies. They are often minorities and are definitely behind in their studies.Besides serving the urban poor and disadvantaged, the system has been a lifesaverfor Catholic high schools threatened by a shortage of once-available nun andpriest teachers, higher costs and dropping enrollments. The Cristo Rey schoolsoperate corporate work-study programs in which students work for localcompanies five days per month, an arrangement that brings in money for theschool and introduces students to the world of work. Sweas uses the personalstories of students from various schools to illustrate how the system works andhow the students view their experiences. To round out her portrait of thenetwork, the author interviewed teachers, administrators, board members andcorporate sponsors, nearly all of whom are glowing in their appraisals.Unfortunately, Sweas' presentation often reads like a promotion piece for thenetwork-e.g, while frequently mentioning that the schools have a 100 percentcollege acceptance rate, she omits data on how many students drop out of CristoRey high schools, how many actually attend what kind of college and what theircollege graduation rates are.A rosy but incomplete picture that would be of greater valueto educators if the author weren't trying so hard to sell the system.

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