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"Triple Tax." In the New York archdiocese. Cardinal Spellman. who is the most outspoken advocate of federal loans, years ago set up one of the world's most efficient church business offices. Refunding the entire parish-level debt, he saved millions by shifting to commercial paper. Catholic schools educate about 26% of all New York City children at "substantially" less cost than public schools pay. Spellman's recent fund drive for new high schools was oversubscribed by $15 million. But in New York's burgeoning suburbs. where parochial schools have to expand fast, parents are now expected to give roughly $800 for new Catholic construction. Many also pay high public school taxes, and federal aid to public education, says one church spokesman, "would be nothing less than a triple tax."
56 to a Teacher. Parochial schools are in the most trouble in bulging suburbs, depressed communities and "federally impacted areas," where an influx of servicemen yields special federal aid for public schools but not Catholic schools. In the Navy town of Norfolk, Va., for example, many parochial schools have three shifts. St. Pius X School opened in 1956. now has 900 students at a ratio of 56 to one teacher; many parents have put children in the better-staffed public schools. Especially in areas where Catholics are a small minority, as in Georgia, a possible "triple tax" seems the last straw. Says one Atlanta priest dispiritedly: "I'm afraid finances are going to rule us out of the education business."
The big problem of parochial school management is finding nun teachers—"the only form of slave labor still permitted in this country," quips Spokane, Wash.'s Diocesan Superintendent Father Norman Triesch. Already 40,000 lay teachers form 40% of the Catholic teaching force, and in five years they will probably be in a majority. Their pay runs to three or four times what a nun teacher costs, yet is enough lower than public school pay to make them hard to recruit. These rising costs put an extra strain on the collection plate—and spur on such typically Catholic fund-raising gimmicks as bingo, raffles, cake sales and carnivals.
Supernatural Help. Where the pinch is worst. Catholic schools save money by dropping grades, generally beginning with the first. "We have supernatural help going for us," says Spokane's Father Triesch. The help has not saved Spokane from dropping the first grade in at least three schools, planning to drop second grade in one. and starting a "parish loyalty" screening system that gives priority to parents who dig deepest. In suburban Greenhills, Ohio, near Cincinnati, Rosary Parish school is also dropping first grade in the face of doubled enrollment, the loss of five lay teachers and "almost insufferable financial problems."