Take a hard look at Catholic schools

It's always hard to watch schools that are doing excellent work be forced to close their doors or consolidate. I live in one of the wealthiest school districts (Indian Prairie Unit District 204) and send my kids to a small Catholic school - St. Irene in Warrenville. Catholic schools have historically had to do more with less. But when education matters - not the bells and whistles - it pays off. We live very close to the new multi-million dollar Metea Valley High school under construction. Listening to the parents talk about all the things that were absolutely necessary for the school amazed me. Our junior high has a graduating class of 800; we have one that's less than 20. And I know every one of those kids, even though my oldest is in 4th grade. We may not have a full gym, but our girls' basketball team just won the conference championship. We may not have expensive science labs, but we sent about a quarter of the class down to the state science fair, and one of our kids won the best-in-show award. We don't have the funding of the nearby prep high schools, but our kids have a near-perfect record of getting into schools like Benet and St. Francis. We don't have a huge special ed budget, but my special needs son is served well in our school. Small class size and parent involvement are the single greatest predictors of student success. We have seen the benefit of those two characteristics firsthand. I would encourage anyone looking for a strong alternative to their existing school system to explore Catholic schools. The biggest illness these schools face is drops in enrollment. Catholic education is easily the best investment we make for our family.

Laura McGowan

Aurora