Putting Education to Work: How Cristo Rey High Schools Are Transforming Urban Education

by Megan Sweas

Overview

The story of how The Cristo Rey Network’s values-based education model and revolutionary work study program have improved urban schools and inspired education reform across the nation.

Combining the latest advancements in instruction, a focus on spiritual values and character development, and an innovative work-study program, the Cristo Rey Network has reinvented urban education and revived a broken system. Catholic school for the twenty-first century, Cristo Rey offers underprivileged students the opportunities they deserve and the structure and committed teachers they need to succeed and build a better life.

Filled with amazing stories of hardship and transformation, Putting Education to Work is a testimonial to the effectiveness of the Cristo Rey program, demonstrated through the lives of its students. Thanks to its rigorous college-prep curriculum and real-life job experience, students become “lifelong learners” who graduate with critical thinking skills and the experience needed for college and the work force. But the Cristo Rey education is not limited to the mind. Focusing on character growth, it ensures the formation of a “whole person” who understands his or her role in helping others.

Presenting the lessons learned along the way, Putting Education to Work shows how any school—religious or secular—can benefit from the Cristo Rey model and offers a hopeful outlook of what young people and determined educators can achieve together.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062288035
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/19/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	274
File size:	576 KB

About the Author

Megan Sweas is a journalist who writes about social and economic justice issues and world religions. She previously was an editor at U.S. Catholic magazine. Sweas was an Annenberg Fellow at the University of Southern California, where she earned a master's degree in specialized journalism. She graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Megan Sweas is a journalist who writes about social and economic justice issues and world religions. She previously was an editor at U.S. Catholic magazine. Sweas was an Annenberg Fellow at the University of Southern California, where she earned a master's degree in specialized journalism. She graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction: Breakthroughs in a Broken System 1

Part I How Cristo Rey Schools Work

1 The Challenge of Inner-City Education 17

2 A New Vision of Administration 37

3 From One School to Many: Building a Network of Support 83

Part II Students Who Work

4 Lifelong Learners 119

5 A Work-Program Revolution 159

6 Faith and Grit 195

Acknowledgments 243

Appendix A Mission Effectiveness Standards 247

Appendix B Techniques and Resources 249

Notes 255

Editorial Reviews

I am a great fan, supporter and champion of the Cristo Rey model. This is a marvelous program because of what it does for young people in America.” — General Colin Powell

“Cristo Rey is magical. What you see is hope and optimism.” — Melinda Gates The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“Children gain advantages in maturity when they are exposed to the business world, which grounds them in their future business life. These students are providing value that no one else is…this is a real win-win.” — Sascha Bopp, CEO, Crate and Barrel

“The educational quality of the program is fundamentally different in kind from what anyone else offers because these students are employable. They come in articulate, bright, well dressed, and ready to work. For our part, we have to be good adult influences in their lives. It lifts everyone’s game.” — Christopher Connor, CEO, Sherwin-Williams

“The achievement of children should trump all other considerations. If we could use a voucher or tax-credit scholarship to send a child to Cristo Rey, where a much higher percent of graduates go to college than in traditional public schools, why would we not do that?” — Governor Jeb Bush

“It seems the real purpose of education has been recovered here. The author has told it well, interspersing personal stories among this readable chronicle.” — Mark M. Wilkins, St. Anthony's Messenger

From the Publisher

It seems the real purpose of education has been recovered here. The author has told it well, interspersing personal stories among this readable chronicle.

Mark M. Wilkins

Cristo Rey is magical. What you see is hope and optimism.

Melinda Gates The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Children gain advantages in maturity when they are exposed to the business world, which grounds them in their future business life. These students are providing value that no one else is…this is a real win-win.

Sascha Bopp

The achievement of children should trump all other considerations. If we could use a voucher or tax-credit scholarship to send a child to Cristo Rey, where a much higher percent of graduates go to college than in traditional public schools, why would we not do that?

Governor Jeb Bush

I am a great fan, supporter and champion of the Cristo Rey model. This is a marvelous program because of what it does for young people in America.

General Colin Powell

The educational quality of the program is fundamentally different in kind from what anyone else offers because these students are employable. They come in articulate, bright, well dressed, and ready to work. For our part, we have to be good adult influences in their lives. It lifts everyone’s game.

Christopher Connor

The Cristo Rey story is one of the greatest success stories of the Jesuits, and indeed the Catholic Church, in the United States in the last 25 years.

James Martin

Cristo Rey is magical. What you see is hope and optimism.

Melinda Gatesm The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

2014-07-02
A markedly positive account of a growing network of highschools designed to help poor urban youth prepare for college.Freelance journalist and former U.S. Catholic magazineeditor Sweas produces a sequel to G.R. Kearney's More Than a Dream (2008),which told the story of the first school in the network, Cristo Rey Jesuit HighSchool in Chicago. From that beginning in 1996, the Cristo Rey network nowincludes 28 college-prep schools in cities across the country. Although theschools are Catholic, students need not be, but they must be from low-incomefamilies. They are often minorities and are definitely behind in their studies.Besides serving the urban poor and disadvantaged, the system has been a lifesaverfor Catholic high schools threatened by a shortage of once-available nun andpriest teachers, higher costs and dropping enrollments. The Cristo Rey schoolsoperate corporate work-study programs in which students work for localcompanies five days per month, an arrangement that brings in money for theschool and introduces students to the world of work. Sweas uses the personalstories of students from various schools to illustrate how the system works andhow the students view their experiences. To round out her portrait of thenetwork, the author interviewed teachers, administrators, board members andcorporate sponsors, nearly all of whom are glowing in their appraisals.Unfortunately, Sweas' presentation often reads like a promotion piece for thenetwork—e.g, while frequently mentioning that the schools have a 100 percentcollege acceptance rate, she omits data on how many students drop out of CristoRey high schools, how many actually attend what kind of college and what theircollege graduation rates are.A rosy but incomplete picture that would be of greater valueto educators if the author weren't trying so hard to sell the system.

Kirkus Reviews