Catholic School Success: The Oblate Sisters of Baltimore

July 11, 2004

Via Education News we learn of a speech given by Bill Cosby's wife Camille, in honor of the Oblate nuns of Baltimore, Maryland. Gregory Kane covered the story for the Baltimore Sun:

Camille Cosby remembers when her brother, three years younger than she, entered St. Cyprian's [an elementary school in Washington] unable to read in the third grade.

"You'll forgive the exaggeration," she said, "if I say he was ready for Shakespeare by the end of his first week after our sisters began shaping him up."

Exaggeration or no, there are many learned "experts" today who honestly believe that if a child isn't reading by the third grade, he never will. Of course this may be true by default in some of our public schools that have just about given up teaching reading, but it is not a life sentence.

But where's the blame for the parents? Surely they must be the reason why a third-grader isn't reading, right? We've argued tirelessly the answer is no, because it is not the job of parents to teach their children to read, that's why they send their children to school. So the nuns have no words of blame for others.

Just because a student has been poorly taught (or not taught) in the past is no excuse to condemn him to future failure. Just roll up your sleeves, as the nuns did with Ms. Cosby's brother, and teach.

Yes, it was an exaggeration, but an instructive one about the work the Oblate Sisters continue to do to this day at St. Frances Academy [shown at right] in one of the roughest, toughest parts of East Baltimore. Contrary to the notion of those who apologize for failing public schools by saying private schools get to cream the top echelon of students, St. Frances has taken public school kids who were flunking and turned them into the 92 percent of the academy's students who go on to college.

Creaming is one of those arguments for which we've yet to see any evidence. On the other hand, we've seen plenty of evidence of reverse-creaming: private schools specifically targeting the worst-educated, the most troubled, the poorest, or the worst-behaved . . . all because they know they can do the job that public schools may not be doing.

When Marva Collins began her school in Chicago, she was challenged by critics who dismissed her amazing accomplishments with students, "oh, she gets to choose her students." That was true. She picked from the bottom of the barrel, in some cases even tackling near-feral children seemingly raised by wolves. Children with no social skills, no civilized behavior, and no hygiene.

She, too, rolled up her sleeves and focused on the hard work of teaching knowledge and skills.

"We always try to help those who are in the greatest need," Sister Mary Alice said. "However, [the students] have to work themselves up into some kind of academic performance or they can't stay."

We've said it before, but we'll say it again. Children won't develop responsibility unless you give them responsibility. The nuns will give these kids every resource they need to become a productive students, but at some point the student needs to roll up his own sleeves and help himself.

Students who do improve their academic performance at St. Frances - which teaches grades nine through 12 - are, Camille Cosby pointed out, from the same demographic that the Baltimore public school system serves. St. Frances manages to get 92 percent of its students from that demographic to attend college. (The national average is 65 percent.)

We see this a lot. Two schools, in the same neighborhood, one private, the other public. And two very different outcomes.

Baltimore's public high schools, at least since 1996 and through the school year ending in June last year, have yet to graduate 59 percent of their students, according to the Maryland Department of Education's Web site.

What's the difference? Maybe it's the leadership.

We'd say it most certainly is the leadership, plus the hard work of the teachers in the individual classrooms. But the public school statistics are even worse than that low 59% number, for blacks are typically graduated with only 8th grade skills, a charge we've never heard leveled against private schools.

"The total of students taught by them over their many years may surpass thousands," Camille Cosby said last week of the Oblate Sisters. The sisters have been doing that well, and with few resources, for 175 years.

Emphasis ours.

So, to recap, these nuns can deal with kids who are way behind in literacy, they specifically target failing public school students, develop responsibility in their charges, serve kids in the same demographic as the rest of Baltimore, send over 90% to college, with few resources.

Amen.