c. 1997 Religion News Service

PHILADELPHIA _ John DiIulio’s favorite teaching assignment isn’t at Princeton University, where he’s a professor of politics. It’s at a Gesu School, a Roman Catholic elementary school in the heart of a depressed inner-city neighborhood.

Here at the Gesu, DiIulio teaches American government to eighth-graders, using the same textbook he uses to teach Princeton freshmen.

“There are a lot better students here than at Princeton,” DiIulio joked Wednesday (Dec. 3) during a symposium at the school on the subject of”faith-based”education.

DiIulio has become a leading proponent of “faith-based” private education as the solution to the woes facing urban schools and his Princeton influence brought some of America’s best-known political movers and shakers to Gesu, including “virtues czar” William Bennett, “Primary Colors” author Joe Klein and Tim Russert from “Meet the Press,” who moderated a panel discussion on the subject.

The speakers praised Catholic education for its track record in urban areas, bemoaned the political opposition over school vouchers and criticized public school teachers unions.

Even as the panel engaged in a down-to-earth discussion about urban education, DiIulio was looking past the constitutional roadblocks of federal aid to religious institutions to ways to gain private backing for faith-based inner-city schools.

“There are issues of church and state, and then there are issues of religion and society,” DiIulio said. “There is no reason in the world why the corporate sector and philanthropic sector can’t immediately step up to the plate and support these schools.”

In the coming months DiIulio will launch an initiative to convince 500 American corporations to give $20,000 apiece to support private urban schools, creating a pool of $10 million to be divided among 10 exemplary faith-based schools.

The effort will be sponsored by The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, where DiIulio is a fellow.

“There is something transforming in the life of a child where the approach is `God loves you and has something better in store for you, and we are here to deliver that,'”DiIulio said.

Bennett, former Secretary of Education sometimes mentioned as a Republican candidate for president, expressed frustration that successful schools like Gesu face financial challenges.

“Schools like this save lives,” said Bennett. “Why should schools like this have to struggle to survive?”

Gesu was scheduled to be closed in 1993, but its trustees raised $4 million to keep it open. The 415-member student body is 98 percent black, and just 18 percent Catholic. More than 65 percent of the students come from single-parent households.

Yet 95 percent of Gesu students graduate, and 59 percent go on to college. It costs the school $3,100 annually to educate a child, compared with $7,000 a year for the Philadelphia public schools. Annual tuition at Gesu is $1,500.

The Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston’s Ten-Point Coalition, one of the panelists, recalled the importance of religious schools when he grew up on the streets of Philadelphia.

“It was only the faith-based community institutions that could provide sanctuary from the chaos, mayhem and decay,” Rivers said.”That’s where we, as children, were introduced to the fact that our lives were sacred because we were a child of God.

“These kids need a vision of hope,” he added. “Where there is no faith and hope, there is no reason for law and order.”

Klein said he had found Catholic schools provide two ingredients many urban children lack _ discipline and structure.

“In a faith-based school you can demand a certain standard of behavior of the kids, a certain way to dress and to pray,” said Klein. “When those demands come from a basis of love, they’re effective.”

Bennett was especially critical of teachers unions, accusing them of resisting new approaches that might threaten the financial security of their members.

“The problem with faith-based education is not the Constitution, it’s the political power of unions,” said Bennett.

Bennett called for allowing public funding of private school education through vouchers parents could use to pay for tuition. Critics say such arrangements violate First Amendment prohibitions on governmental support of religion, and would only drain good students from city public schools.

DiIulio said educators and politicians must recognize the pressing nature of the problem.

“There are a tremendous number of dedicated, hard-working public school teachers fighting the good fight, often with little support,” said DiIulio. “But at the end of the day, we have high schoolers in inner-city Philadelphia where basic literacy runs under 10 percent. There’s something fundamentally wrong when children are forced into a situation where kids cannot read after 12 years of public education.”

DEA END MILLER