In this grounded theory study, qualitative data from 11 educators in six diocesan high schools in the New England region revealed an interrelated framework for lay educator faith formation. Dimensions of that framework include the educator's relationship to the Church, interconnected processes of prayerful reflection and personal encounter,…

Merrimack College is a midsized Catholic Augustinian College pursuing its historical service-based commitments while shifting priorities toward research. With limited time and resources, these two aims can create tension at institutional and faculty levels. This single institutional case study shares the work of faculty and College leadership to…

Catholic educational institutions play an important role in educating Latino high achieving students. Latino students attending Catholic high schools are more likely to graduate and transition to college immediately following high school. Few studies have examined the outcomes of Latino students who attend Catholic colleges and universities and…

After recounting the historical circumstances of the establishment of independent boards at Catholic colleges and universities, this paper considers the present conditions of boards at six Holy Cross institutions. Interviews and correspondence with the presidents of these institutions provided answers to a number of questions, including: How are…

What common values do diverse Jesuit institutions share? In what ways are Jesuit colleges and universities working to maintain mission, identity, and traditions within the context of 21st-century higher education? To ground their response to these questions, the researchers first review the historical and ecclesial developments that have…

The mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Law, including the threat of closing a school for underperformance, have led to multiple public school turnaround attempts. Because turnaround is a relatively new area of focus in education, there is limited research on what does and does not work, and even the definition of turnaround is a work in…

This article describes the University of Consortium for Catholic Education (UCCE) as an example of collaboration between Catholic colleges, universities, schools, and other stakeholders. The UCCE supports a collaborative cadre of primarily Catholic colleges and universities as they design and implement graduate-level teaching service programs for…

This article shows how Merrimack College's Catholic heritage and Augustinian tradition provide intellectual and spiritual resources for the college to fulfill its educational responsibility to prepare students for virtuous citizenship in a religiously and culturally pluralistic society. It uses four major Vatican documents and several foundational…

Background: Teacher quality plays a key role in student learning outcomes. Yet, data suggest that elite college graduates who enter teaching are less likely to stay in schools serving low income and minority students compared to other teachers. Thus, many educators and policy makers agree that in order to equalize the playing field, recruitment,…

The literature on preparing teachers for urban schools provides a rationale for helping candidates understand the particular cultures of students. However, research has not sufficiently "unpacked" features of the setting that programs can address; nor has it discussed how programs tailor teaching approaches to their specific contexts.…

This article examines the current and potential contributions of the University Consortium for Catholic Education (UCCE) to both K-12 and higher Catholic education. In order to situate the development of alternative teacher preparation programs, a history of Catholic teacher formation is addressed followed by a brief summary of the existing…

Family Partnerships for Achievement is not a course typical of most master's programs in education. The course was designed with one overriding goal: to prepare teachers to be effective in the Boston Public Schools (BPS). This goal drives every aspect of the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR), a district-based program for teacher training and…

In this article, Zoe Burkholder explores the historical interplay of the emergence of tolerance education in the United States and the rise of black educational activism in Boston. By uncovering a pointed lack of tolerance education in Boston and a widespread promotion of tolerance education in other cities in the early half of the twentieth…

Catholic high schools in Chicago came onto the educational landscape in significant number in the 1920s, a critical time period in American educational history. In an era focused on efficiency and compulsory schooling, Catholic high schools organized themselves to meet the legal statutes affecting them directly and those that would govern their…

In contrast to current education policies that conceptualize pupil learning largely in terms of standardized exam scores, we offer an alternative view, one that conceives of pupil learning as a source of insight for pupils and teachers alike. Drawing on survey data and a qualitative study of the teacher candidate experience, we explore the…