Catholic-to-Charter Conversions

As urban Catholic schools continue to close across the country, New York, Miami, San Antonio and other cities are considering turning closing Catholic schools into charter schools, since they provide what is seen by some as an essential alternative to poor-performing urban public schools.

National charter-school leaders, such as KIPP co-founder Scott Hamilton are organizing to support Catholic to charter conversions across the country. The city of Washington, D.C., and the Archdiocese of Washington decided last year to convert seven Catholic schools that were closing into charters.

Our story will look at how the conversion of Catholic schools to charter schools in D.C. has affected the students and teachers at those schools and the public-school system there. We will examine complicated issues surrounding school funding and separation of church and state. We will raise questions about what the central purpose of both public and charter schools should be.

We will talk to Washington policy experts and school leaders, but our story will focus on the ways communities have experienced Catholic-to-charter conversions and how it has changed them.