When Barack and Michelle Obama checked out Washington, D.C., schools for their children, they were interested only in private schools.
A successful couple of great means, they can avoid the troubled D.C. public school system and send their two daughters to most any school they wish.
I don’t begrudge their decision. It was their choice, after all.
If only more families could make such choices.
Sadly, hundreds of Denver kids are on the brink of losing their choice.
Two years after Colorado’s Supreme Court derailed a limited school-voucher program to help low-income students struggling in low-performing schools, the Catholic Church stepped forward in 2006, through its Seeds of Hope program, to offer privately funded vouchers of up to $3,000 for students to attend inner-city Catholic schools.
“Voucher” is such a politically loaded word, but at the time, Archbishop Charles Chaput said the program wasn’t meant to be a political statement.
Instead, he said, it was intended to give parents the financial power to choose where to send their kids and how to nurture their spirituality.
It worked. Within three days, the 250 vouchers had been scooped up.
Over the past two years, the program has grown to serve about 1,700 kids. But with Wall Street’s financial crisis and a lack of funds coming into the program, Seeds of Hope is in danger of not being able to meet its obligations to next year’s students.
“Failure on this effort is unthinkable,” said John Harpole, chairman of the Seeds of Hope board.
The financial impact on already struggling inner-city Catholic schools would be devastating. But even moreso, Harpole worries about the families and students whose lives have been forever changed by simply finding a nurturing school environment where the “whole child” is educated.
What happens to them?
The thought consumes him.
Harpole’s story is just one chord in a growing chorus we’re going to continue to hear as the economy heads south. Needs will rise as income and charitable giving drops.
But Harpole’s story resonated with me, a veteran of Catholic schools, and I know it will resonate with the thousands of Coloradans whose lives were shaped by the priests, nuns and many lay teachers in parochial schools.
We know the families he’s talking about. We don’t know them by by name or by face, but we know their stories. These are the families whose needs weren’t being met in traditional public schools, for whatever reason, but with a little help they found a place where their children could thrive.
For some, it’s the difference between becoming a high school graduate and tomorrow’s statistic.
Catholic schools are often the first barometers of a bad economy. When times get tough, belt-tightening parents send their kids to the neighborhood school, which they already support through taxes.
Seeds of Hope has launched a 100-day fundraising blitz, trying to raise $2 million to keep the program afloat. It won’t be easy in these troubling times, but the consequences of failure loom large.
It’s not just a quest to ensure the viability of inner-city Catholic schools. It’s also about protecting a tiny slice of our future that’s endangered.
Editorial page editor Dan Haley can be reached at dhaley@denverpost.com. To donate to Seeds of Hope, go to .
