Catholic (Private School) -Still a Whoppingly Expensive Bargain; What Do Real People Do?

"Now is the time for a new covenant inscribed not on stone, but on the human heart"(Jeremiah 31.31)

Welcome to my world. In this world comprised of families, there are unbelievable pressures on the co-heads of households - mortgage and rent of the home, health care for children, safety, groceries, heat, water, electricity, gas, upkeep and home maintenance, schooling and transportation. That would no doubt be the priorities in order of essentials.

Quality of life does not equate to living a happy, loving and fulfilled life, but it sure does play Hell on doing so.

Where I live many co-heads of household work - husbands and wives take jobs. As mothering is essential to early childhood development many young wives stay home while the kids are growing up through early schooling. Moms often walk the Little guys to and from Pre-school, Kindergarten, and the early grades and tend to be home after school. Dads generally work full time jobs and in my neighborhood that includes a great deal of overtime. where I live there are many working as skilled tradesmen, police officers, firemen and government employees.

Many of my neighbors are getting laid off due to City, State and County cut-backs in service.

The vast majority of my neighbors, like me are Roman Catholic and send their children to parish grammar schools in order to ground their children in the Faith and give them a solid elementary education. Catholic schools out-perform public schools.

After grade school, there are no choices for secondary schools other than Catholic High Schools. Middle Class families of other races and Faiths, like their Catholic neighbors choose Catholic High Schools for their children as well. I know Muslim, AME, Baptist and Lutheran and Dutch Reformed kids who attended Kelloge, Clissold and Vanderpole CPS grammar schools now attending Marist, St. Ignatius, Brother Rice, St. Rita, Mount Carmel and my beloved Leo High School, because they and their parents want them prepared for college or the Skilled Trades.

Catholic High School tuition is brutal.

Here are the choices with a ten mile radius of Zipcodes 60620, 60643, 60655.

Marist High School
4200 W. 115th St.
Chicago, IL 60655-4397
3.7 mi

Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School
3737 W. 99th St.
Chicago, IL 60655-3398
4.0 mi

Brother Rice High School
10001 S. Pulaski Rd.
Chicago, IL 60655-3356
4.2 mi

Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon St.
Chicago, IL 60620-2531
5.1 mi

St. Rita of Cascia High School
7740 S. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60620-5820
5.4 mi

Seton Academy
16100 Seton Dr.
South Holland, IL 60473-1899
6.2 mi

My youngest daughter is a junior at Mother McAuley and attends with most of her classmates from St. Cajetan Grammar School - the other girls attend Marist, St. Ignatius, and two at Mount Assisi in Lemont. McAuley's tuition this year was paid in full in August at a whopping bargain at $ 8,950.00 with an additional $ 700.00 for books and fees. St. Ignatius is far more and Leo High School a bit less.

Let's say one of my neighbors worked as a driver ( Garbage Truck, Snowplow, & etc.) for the Dept. Streets and Sanitation and was bringing in about $ 70,000 a year and his wife was working part-time as a nurse at Advocate Christ, or Little Company of Mary Hospital - they have three boys at St. Rita and a daughter in college. Their mortgage on a three bedroom raised ranch is $ 1,036.00 with escrow and insurance per month. They are feeding three teenage boys, mind you. Clothing is less of a concern as they live in standard issue Bev Rat habiliments - SR Polos and chinos at school and baseball caps, cargo shorts and hoodies for formal occasions

Dad has worked the Ward for twenty years and change and some empowered dillies will now pick up the Virgin Mary Blue Recycling containers*. That must cause a chill in the otherwise steel spine of any man. but now let's talk about the gelding of Ward Organizations with Garbage Grid Gambit. If the "Bossism Reform GOOGOOs" are for it get ready for a pocket rape, Citizens! Are layoffs looming? You Betcha! Clout no longer exists. Shakman saved Illinois from corruption, Y'all! We got Garbage Grids a'coming!

Corruption and Crony Captialism remains unchecked to be sure but they benefit no one down on this level of the food chain. Ted the Helot's financial fanny flaps in the breeze and the "Ain't They Great" clowns always have a pay day. "Ain't They Greaters" are the idiots in Government whom the media and the Left Field advisers tag for Preferment. They are Reformers who lose elections and always get appointed to a swell paying bullet proof job in CPS, CTA, Lt. Governor, Congress, or the County Wastelands.

Ted the Helot gets a notice for unpaid days on the job, unpaid furloughs and finally the Layoff. That is what the Pie-Chart Gurus call Smart Sizing.

Catholic Schools offer a Tuition Covenant for Catholic Grammar Schools and secondary schools like Leo High School make sure that families can meet tuition costs. Big Shoulders Fund is a magnificent body of people who never seem to get any attention from the Chicago Media Icons. The Big Shoulders Fund raises millions of dollars specifically for inner city Chicago families who want a Catholic Education elementary and secondary.

Here at Leo High School fund-raising revenue is out-pacing tuition revenue, due to this lousy economy. Families are up against it. Dan McGrath, Leo President for Institutional Advancement, has collected $ 50,000 from new donors and $ 200,000 from an anonymous source since August to help move things along. Catholic Schools are tuition and fund-raising driven operations that outperform public schools.

Leo High School is working to bring Catholic Education to families with high school aged sons that are up-against-it. The Leo Advisory Board is helping craft and exciting tuition program that take some of the worry out of families facing lay-offs and other unforeseen financial burdens.

Government will not help. School Choice only happens in Indiana, folks. Until, things begin to make sense again, give Dan McGrath at Leo High School a call.

Leo High School - Male Only 9-12 College PreparatoryDan McGrath -President for Institutional Advancement
Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon Street
Chicago, IL 60620

(773) 224-9600 7AM - 4PM.

Pat Hickey - Development Office
(773) 224-9600 ex. 208 5AM - 3PM


http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/7016120-418/emanuel-to-switch-trash-pickup-to-grid-system-to-save-60-mil.* Oh, Yeah. It happened - $ 25M is some sweet garbage unless your life depends upon it. And the City will Save $60M with Garbage Grid? Dancer, Please! well, someone will save quite a bit - Chicago United Indsutries, n'cest pas?

As discussed in the Chicago Reader, Chicago’s recycling program has been both ineffective and expensive for a long time — and the city pays millions of dollars each year to maintain the program. Before he left office, former Mayor Richard M. Daley negotiated (but did not finalize) a new plan to privatize pickup of recycling in blue bins. (Like the current contract that gives the materials to Allied Waste, the blue bins would not cover multi-dwelling buildings, but would increase the number of households getting blue bins by about 200,000. The city would give up market value for the collected commodities, and continue to pay private contractors to haul and then sell the materials.)

It remains to be seen whether the Emanuel administration will adopt this plan; this week the city workers who currently collect the city’s recycling argued the proposal is counterproductive and too expensive.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s plan to privatize household recycling would saddle Chicago homeowners with hidden costs, collection fees and late-night deliveries while depriving the city of millions of dollars in revenue from the sale of recyclables, union leaders contend.

Laborers Union Local 1001, whose members stand to lose their jobs to a private contractor, is further arguing that the 14-year contract would shortchange minorities and women, who would get just 9 percent and 3 percent of the deal respectively. That is a far cry from the 25 and 5 percent set-asides tied to most other city contracts.

Local 1001 business manager Lou Phillips noted that the city’s own forecasts project $3 million from the sale of recyclables this year, nearly three times the take in 2010.

“Can we afford to give up such an expanding, long-term revenue stream that, in reality, is better than the now-famous parking meter deal?” Phillips said.

“In bad economic times, more people eat at home, stay at home [and] create more trash which, with the proper education, has begun to create more recyclables [and] more potential revenue. . . . Why would we give away $3 million a year or more?”

Under fire to deliver suburban-style curbside recycling to 359,000 Chicago households without it, Daley chose Waste Management in late March to provide the service in four of six designated zones.

Fiscal shortfalls have led large cities to drastically change their recycling programs before. The irony is that contracts with Waste Management have often been too costly for municipalities to bear. Chicago ended a previous contract to collect blue bags with the firm several years ago and switched over to Allied Waste before ending the blue bag program altogether. In 2002, New York City had a serious budget crisis — and a recycling contract with Waste Management that cost the city over $40 million each year. The city decided to eliminate glass and plastic curbside pickups.

Immediately, residents protested. Faced with a highly unpopular policy decision and an unaffordable contract, the city looked for alternatives. Within months they found one. New York City entered into a contract with a scrap materials dealer (Hugo Neu) who treated the collected materials as commodities to sell rather than wastes to remove. Today, Hugo Neu pays New York City a few million dollars per year from the revenues they make off collected metals on the open market. That revenue offsets the costs of collecting all recyclables, including glass and plastics. Changing contracts to recognize that recyclables are commodities to sell rather than wastes to be charged for provided New York’s residents with a functioning recycling program that didn’t exhaust the budget.

Roosevelt Professor Carl Zimring discussed New York City’s experience in the last chapter of his book Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America. He also discussed it and Chicago’s continued problems in SUST 240 Waste this past spring and will cover any updates to Chicago’s program in SUST 210 The Sustainable Future (offered online this summer beginning May 31). For more information on this or any other of our courses, visit our Sustainability Studies website, call 1-877-277-5978 (1-877-APPLY RU) or email applyRU@roosevelt.edu.