Alliance for Catholic Education
When the diocese in Memphis shut down the once promising Jubilee Catholic Schools, I was surprised like many others in the Catholic education community. What happened, and what can we learn from it?
There is a range of views, but a diagnosis of lessons learned from what we can see from outside Memphis is in order. An autopsy is a growth opportunity to learn from failure. A post mortem of a failed school or network requires a thorough examination to determine the cause and manner of the failure and an evaluation of any practices or characteristics that may be present for further research, network development or educational purposes. These procedures, while tough, are vital if other Catholic schools and networks hope to avoid the same fate and, instead, thrive in an ever-diversifying educational marketplace.
Good leaders learn from failure. To do that, we need to understand what happened in Memphis. Here is what I learned from a post mortem of Jubilee Schools, along with solutions to transform Catholic education—especially in high-poverty communities.