Catholic enrollment declines have slowed
The Archdiocese of Baltimore said today that enrollment at its schools declined 4.3 percent this year, cutting the number of students who are leaving the Catholic school system in half. Last year, enrollment declined by 9 percent overall, and the Archdiocese closed schools and reorganized its system.
The Archdiocese said in a press release today that AdvanceEd, an accreditation organization, had recommended that the system be accreditated after evaluating the 60 schools in the system and the central offices. A strategic plan completed last year after the reorganization was credited with stemming the decline in enrollment.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
Would hardly say that enrollment decline has been stemmed. And is something called AdvanceEd really credible as an accrediting organization?
Posted by: boomer | October 24, 2011 4:17 PM
AdvancED is the accreditation division of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. With 30,000 public and private school systems and nearly 15 million students, it is the world's largest accrediting and school improvement organization.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 25, 2011 1:29 PM
One of the upcoming issues being considered by the archdiocese is the elimination of the multi-child discount and the parishioner tuition rates. For those that choose to send children to catholic schools, this is alarming. Many families with multiple children won't be able to send their children to catholic schools because of the expense. Instead they'll have no choice but to go to public schools. That will then decrease enrollment again and send tuition costs higher for those that stay. This will lead to another set of families that can no longer afford to stay......and so begins the cycle of a closing school.
To those of us with children in Catholic schools, it would appear that the archdiocese is trying to get out of the business of educating children. At a time when family budgets are shrinking, doing away with much needed discounts is short-sighted and shameful!
Posted by: BaltimoreMom | October 28, 2011 11:06 AM