State lawmakers are considering legislation that could provide parents with more options for their children?s education, including Catholic, charter and other private schools.
?Parents should have a choice when it comes to educating their children,? said Father John Carlin, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Parma.
Eileen Updegrove, principal of the parish school, agrees.
?Many of my parents struggle to pay tuition,? she said, ?but they truly value Catholic education and feel it is worth the sacrifice.?
One Holy Name High School senior shared her personal experience with school choice, explaining that her parents, both of whom work in retail, struggled to pay her high school tuition so she could attend the school of her choice.
The family lives in Cleveland and she attended public schools through eighth grade. ?I had a good experience,? she said, ?but I wanted to attend Holy Name High School.? She won a partial scholarship from Holy Name and said her parents sacrificed so she could attend the school of her choice. In her junior year, she received a Cleveland Scholarship, which was fortuitous, since her father had some serious medical issues that prevented him from working for an extended time and it was questionable if she could return to Holy Name for her senior year.
Christopher Knight, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Cleveland, said Catholic schools provide a quality education for many families who are not Catholic
