Blog | Alliance for Catholic Education

Plush Mary laying down with books in Schroeder's classroom.

Waiting Together: Advent in the Classroom

I have always loved Advent, but the season took on an even deeper meaning once I started sharing it with my 5th-grade students. Experiencing the hope and wonder of Christ’s...

ACE Teachers singing joyfully during Lessons and Carols at December Retreat 2025

I Can't Wait

“We wait because there’s a promise. There’s a presupposition of something more worth waiting for.” “But I want it now!” is a sentence heard throughout the country this time of...

Every Student Succeeds Act: English Language Learning Children Not Left Behind

English learners (ELs) are the fastest growing population in U.S. schools. By 2025, nearly 1 in 4 US school children will be an EL. While their numbers grow, their performance...

Why Students Need a Third Language

I had a difficult choice: Spanish, French, or Latin. Those were my choices for my high school's second language requirement. If I had to make the choice in 2016, I...

A Place for Mercy in Our Schools

In our broken world, Pope Francis consistently lights flames of hope and love in the hearts of others, making him one of greatest transformational leaders of our day. And like...

Catholic Schools Enable Teachers, Students to Feel "Fully Alive"

I am a product of public schools from pre-school clear through university, even teaching in a massive public high school as a student teacher. The eighteen-year experience was overwhelmingly positive...

Come and See: Catholic Schools Plant Seeds for Vocations

I discovered my vocation to be a priest in Catholic schools. Surely, the seed was planted by the diocesan priests and IHM sisters who taught me at St. Pius X...

Why I Sent My Protestant Son to a Catholic School

"We don't teach them because they're Catholic but because we are Catholic." - Cardinal James Hickey, Washington, DC This quote is a favorite of mine. Education Next dubbed it "a...

Catholic Schools Debunk the Myth of Unteachability

Pens need to be vertical. Every teacher knows that. When a student's wrist goes limp and his pen falls to the desk, it's trouble. It's the sign of despair, the...

Catholic Schools Week 2016 - For Our Communities

Chicago Jesuit Academy, where I was blessed to work for four years, is a place of hope. Although it is surrounded by violence and poverty, and although the students are...

ACE Blog

Waiting Together: Advent in the Classroom

I Can't Wait