Most of the news we cover here on the subject of education has been uniformly bad over the past several years, generally dealing with the nation’s public schools. School closures during the pandemic, disastrous “remote learning” experiments and rising crime rates on campus have been common themes. But there is one bright spot that’s been overlooked and it comes from an unlikely source. In the crime-plagued city of Baltimore, Maryland, famous for municipal corruption, the Catholic school system is thriving. The archdiocese saw a large uptick in enrollment during the pandemic, but instead of receding once the public schools reopened, that surge continues to increase. There are more than 500 new students attending Catholic schools in the city this semester and the schools are struggling to fill more than 100 new teaching positions. The reasons given by many parents who were interviewed vary from family to family, but the common theme seems to be that the public schools are simply unsatisfactory and the experience at the Catholic schools is superior in nearly every way. (CBS News)

This year, enrollment at area Catholic schools increased by hundreds.

There’s about 530 new students enrolled this year from the previous academic year, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Although several factors play into the reason behind the uptick, the archdiocesan response to the Coronavirus pandemic made more people aware of the private school education option, according to Dr. Donna Hargens who is the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Probably the number one reason given by parents for the decision to enroll their children in Catholic school was the fact that the schools did not close any more than was absolutely mandatory during the pandemic. When they did temporarily close, they reopened as soon as possible. Dr. Donna Hargens was quoted as saying, “We know that (in-person learning) is the best educational environment for students.”

Some parents cited “the religious foundation, the academic rigor and the social aspects,” in deciding to enroll their daughters at Mercy High School and their children of both genders at other Catholic schools. The results speak for themselves because college acceptance among Catholic school students in Baltimore far outpaces all of the public schools.

There is also a distinct lack of woke agendas in the city’s Catholic schools. The students are not being indoctrinated into gender-bending and you won’t see any trans drag shows in these schools. The focus is on academic achievement with a solid moral foundation. And parents are intimately involved in each step of the process. The Catholic schools do not hide their curriculum from the families, instead inviting parental participation in the education process.

The streets of Baltimore are a horror show and the murder rate there is off the charts. But somehow, the city’s Catholic schools have managed to build a fortress against the madness and they are making it work. It is truly a pleasure to be able to report some good news coming out of Charm City and this story definitely fits that definition. Perhaps there is hope for Baltimore after all.