Lord it is good for us to be here. We want to thank you for coming to De LaSalle Institute to help us, first of all, celebrate Catholic education, Catholic school education, but, most importantly, to give honor to these wonderful teachers that are here today who represent so many other Catholic school teachers throughout the Archdiocese. We also want to review with you our annual report. Finally, we want to announce some new initiatives which we think will be very, very promising in administering to the educational needs of young people in the city and elsewhere.

As we approach Catholic Schools Week, it seems very appropriate that we honor these 14 teachers and two administrators. We are proud of each one of these honorees, and we thank them for their tremendous commitment and dedication to the ministry of Catholic school education here in the Archdiocese of Chicago. It's interesting to note that these honorees come from all over the Archdiocese -- from both counties which make up the Archdiocese-- Lake and Cook; from elementary and high schools; from the city as well as from the suburbs. We are very proud of them. They represent all the wonderful teachers who day in and day out bring the message of the gospel to the young people in our schools.

Teaching is much more than a job. It is an opportunity to care for the material and spiritual needs of the whole child. I think one of the real keys of Catholic school education is that we educate the whole child.

Also, it's an opportunity for teachers to build a family of faith that will welcome and celebrate the dignity of God's people. It's an opportunity for teachers to create a community of life-long learners who treasure excellence and truth and are not afraid to work hard to achieve those goals.

The National Catholic Education Association has said for years that the real strength and the heart of the Catholic school are the teachers. That's so true as you examine the history of Catholic schools or as you talk with parents. Parents are so concerned about what teacher their kids are going to have because they know how important that teacher is to their young people.

As you so well know, teachers are many, many things to the young people who attend our schools. They are counselors to the children. They are sharers of knowledge. They are friends sometimes. They are also referees. They are lunchroom moderators, bus supervisors, playground monitors, bathroom guards. They are also the chief paper picker uppers in the halls. But most importantly, absolutely most importantly, they are ministers -- ministers of the word of God to young people.

Teaching is a holy ministry because it is touching the spiritual side of the young people who are in our classrooms. That is a holy thing.

You teachers form the faith life of young people. That is a tremendously important and sacred ministry. You do an excellent job by virtue of all the things we know about Catholic school education.

When we talk about the Annual Report, we will point out a number of those things. But take a look at the attendance rates of students, the satisfaction rates of parents regarding their schools. If you take a look at the graduation rates of kids from our Catholic high schools, the percentage of those kids going on to college, our test scores, the percentage of Catholic kids who go to college and graduate from college, all these are outstanding statistics that point to the tremendous success of Catholic schools.

Research shows that the longer a child stays in a Catholic school, like eight years or more, the more hopeful a child becomes. Hopefulness is directly related to being an active person. It is also related to the religiosity of the child. The longer a child stays in a Catholic school, not only are all those academic things that I just mentioned true, but also, most importantly, the religiosity of the child. The only reason we have Catholic schools is to teach our faith. It's good to see that research also bears that out. Research shows that the longer a child stays in a Catholic school, the stronger their faith-life becomes. It also bears forth when they become adults. These Catholic school graduates are better participants in the parish life, and they are also those who contribute financially to their parishes. So there's a lot of wonderful things that happen as a result of a child going to a Catholic school. All of that happens because of the wonderful teachers that we have at our schools, and the wonderful administrators who help lead these teachers in the educational programs that benefit our children.

The rubric that was used to identify the teachers that we're honoring today is rather extensive. I was very, very pleased as a newcomer here to Chicago to see this. Each applicant must present their professional biography including their experience and education and also their philosophy of teaching. In addition, they must provide evidence of their contributions in one of seven categories: the arts, evangelization and technology, innovation and creativity, leadership, peace and justice, rising star and technology.

We're honoring these 14 teachers today, but there's a whole lot of other teachers who were nominated, and we're proud of them also.

We thank you teachers for the tremendous job you do, and we thank the administrators for the support that you give these teachers as they go about their business day in and day out. We'll have a lot more to say about these teachers as we give the honors in a little bit.

The second thing I refer you to and share with you today is the Annual Report. I want to acknowledge up front Sister Dawn Tomaszewski who is our communications director in the Office of the Catholic Schools for helping put this all together. She's done a tremendous job, and we certainly appreciate her efforts.

Throughout the Annual Report you'll see a lot of reference to the 9-11 tragedy. It was a major event in the country, of course, and we are proud of the way that our schools responded to that tragedy. I think our students displayed a great deal of sensitivity. That was due to the good leadership they received from you, the teachers, and also the administrators. They helped the students respond in a meaningful and spiritual way. I won't go through all those examples, but I think you'll see that there were a lot of good examples of how we try to make sure that our young people understood that event as best we could explain it., and also how to try and put that event into perspective.

The Annual Report has a lot of other interesting information. I would like to refer you to page six. The graphs and some of the boxes here give a good picture of our school system. First of all, I refer to you the TerraNova Test results. This is our national standardized testing program in the Archdiocese. There are a number of standardized tests that can be selected to be used by a particular school district. There's the ITBS and McGraw Hill tests. The TerraNova has been selected by us because we really believe that there's a strong correlation between our courses of study, what we teach in our school, and what the TerraNova tests actually test.

If you look underneath the graph there, you'll see that the national average is 50. When you have a score of 50, that means 50 percent of the people scored above you, and 50 percent scored below you. Take a look at our scores. For example, for grade 3 under Archdiocese the reading score was 66, in grade 5 it was 71 and then in grade 7 it was 75. If you go down to the total score, you will see the numbers 68, 70, 75. These scores indicate that the longer a child stays in a Catholic school, the more prepared he/she becomes and the more achievement he/she experiences.

If you take a look at the green box which is the profile of Catholic School faculty, it certainly does indicate our recent experience in Catholic schools. Catholic schools are primarily staffed by lay people at this time, 96 percent lay, 4 percent religious; 92 percent female and 8 percent male in elementary school. Secondary school teachers are also 96 percent lay, 4 percent religious with 81 percent female and 19 percent male. This is also true of our administrators.

An important point to make, which is a tremendous tribute to our teachers and administrators, is the fact that 98 percent of our teachers are either certified or have specialty degrees in the areas that they teach; 26 percent have master's degree or greater. Even though we're not able to pay the kinds of salaries that the public schools pay, our teachers maintain profession credentials. I think you can interpret that as yes, we have very, very, very fine teachers who see teaching as a ministry more so than a job.

Take a look now at the financial profile. This is an area that always gets a lot of attention. The average tuition for the first child in the elementary schools, $2,745 compared to the per pupil cost is $3,009. The average tuition and fees of secondary schools is $5,510 while their per pupil cost is $6784.

For the Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago the tuition and fees that the parents pay covers 82 percent. This means that our elementary schools are 82 percent solvent.

The next section deals with the elementary school costs across the Archdiocese: the cost is $278 million; the revenue totals $228 million, which leaves a perceived deficit of $50 million. That $50 million is covered through parish subsidies, through Archdiocesan grants, through Big Shoulder grants and other kinds of fundraising.

Regarding the profile of Catholic Schools, we have 261 elementary schools, 43 secondary schools for a total of 304 schools. We still are the largest Catholic school system in the nation.

Looking at the information entitled, "Taxpayers money saved by students attending Catholic schools," you'll see a total savings to taxpayers of Cook and Lake County of $1,043,000,000. We calculate this by taking a look at the per pupil cost of the public schools and multiplying our numbers by that. When you take a look at just the City of Chicago, you'll see that the savings there are $413,000,000. Both of those numbers are truly significant. This is one of the items we use when we talk about state aid and federal aid from our legislatures. We are saving the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money. We are serving the communities tremendously in terms of the way that we are educating the young people and trying to prepare them for responsible kinds of positions in the community. We certainly are a very vital and important institution in the community of Chicago.

When you take a look at the profile of Catholic School students, you'll see that the total number of students in the elementary schools is 92,681 for this year. This is down 3.77 percent from last year. Secondary enrollment is 30,768, down 2.2 percent. Out total student population is 123,449, which is down 3.4 percent We would prefer not to see these figures, but it points out the challenges that we have to face.

Catholicity is also profiled in the report; for elementary schools, 85 percent of our students are Catholic, 15 percent non-Catholic. In the secondary schools, 83 percent of our students are Catholic, 17 percent non-Catholic.

Finally, you'll see the ACT scores reported. We are above the national average and slightly below (.2) the state level. The important thing to note, is that in Catholic schools, nearly every kid takes the ACT. In public schools that's not true. You'll see that at the national level 38 percent of students take the test, 72 percent in the state. This affects the average scores.

All in all, I think that we are doing a tremendous job in Catholic schools for the sake of the kids and eventually for the community.

The Big Shoulders Organization is truly a partner in this whole endeavor. Throughout the Annual Report, you'll see Big Shoulder numbers. I just want to say how strongly we value that group. Big Shoulders is an independent non-profit group.

Their whole purpose is to raise money for inner city youth going to Catholic schools. Over the years, they have contributed more than $110 million to the Catholic schools in the City of Chicago. They continue to give $2.5 million in operational grants and more than $6 million in scholarships. That kind of money will continue for a number of years. We thank the leadership of that group, Mr. Jim O'Connor, all the donors and the Executive Director, Judy Silekis, for their tremendous support in helping us achieve these kinds of results. Without them we would have additional schools with financial problems. They really have been a true ally.

A couple of conclusions and challenges can be drawn from this Annual Report. Number one, I think it's quite evident that we are doing the job. We are fulfilling the mission of Catholic schools which is to provide an excellent Catholic education to the young people who attend them. These schools are dynamic learning communities.

But there are some challenges. We need to find new sources of revenue. We do not want to turn our back on any child who wants to go to a Catholic school no matter where that child would be, whether it would be in the suburbs or in the inner city. We need more assistance to do that. The Archdiocese of Chicago will continue to give $6 million in operational grants. And, as I said, Big Shoulders will continue to give $2.5 million in operational grants and scholarship money in addition to that. But we see even greater needs that have to be addressed. Many of them have to do with the capital improvement of our buildings. As you can imagine some of the buildings have been around for a long time, and we need to address those capital improvements. So that's just an example. Teacher salaries is another one.

Also, another challenge is to seek more state funds. We already have the family tax credit which has benefited people in the State of Illinois providing somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 to $40 million. I haven't gotten the latest figure, but it's somewhere in that area, which is a tremendous thing.

A new initiative that we are planning is to get Springfield to pass a corporate tax credit. With a corporate tax credit, a corporation can make a donation to a scholarship program. If they donate $100,000, they can take 75 percent of $100,000 off their tax liability. Then kids can apply for those scholarship programs for aid. This is something we're going to pursue, and we would hope that we could be successful.

We also need to convince parents and young people -- many times young people make the decisions about where to attend school, especially high school -- that they cannot not go to a Catholic school. The benefits of attending Catholic school both academically and spiritually are so great that we have to convince parents to find ways to have their children attend Catholic school. We will work with them, help them to find ways of affording a Catholic school.

Our high schools are doing a tremendous job trying to meet that need in terms of scholarships. There are some high schools that are giving $1.5 million in scholarships a year. It's a tremendous effort. We need to create more scholarships programs in our schools so that we can take care of more and more kids.

We do not want to have to say to a child, "You can't come to a Catholic school because of money." We have to find ways and help the parents find ways. Therefore, we need more scholarship programs.

As you read through the Annual Report, I'm sure you'll be impressed with the wonderful things going on in the Catholic schools. Again, I thank Sister Dawn for her tremendous work in this regard.

Finally, this morning I would like to some new initiatives. Last week we had the duty of announcing that 14 schools will be closing at the end of this school year. We also announced that three new schools will open and two schools will consolidate. These are tough decisions. They're tough decisions because we know how it affects kids, families, parishes, communities. But we had to make these decisions out of a sense of stewardship, out of a sense of trying to look at what is viable for the long term.

At the same time, out of the sense of stewardship, we feel we need to do some other things too. Our goal always is to make sure that Catholic education is available and affordable throughout the Archdiocese and to make sure that our schools remain Catholic, vital and excellent.

The new initiatives we introduce today are the beginnings of a vision of where we would like to go. The first idea is to create a Catholic school endowment fund. This fund would be located at the Archdiocese. Its purpose would be to address some of the challenges to which I referred earlier. We need additional kinds of revenue sources so that we can address the kinds of problems I mentioned. The new fund would augment the operating grants that the Archdiocese and Big Shoulders are already putting forth. The fund would provide scholarships for kids outside the city.

Right now we serve 26,000 students in all the Archdiocesan schools who receive free or reduced-priced lunch. Of those, 11,000 are in Big Shoulders schools; 15,000 students are in schools outside of Big Shoulder area. We have to help these kids. We have to find ways of making sure that they have some assistance. As I said, many schools are doing a tremendous job in providing assistance. But at the same time, we have to do more. There's always a need to do more.

The funding for this assistance will come from this new fund and will be provided by donations of people who are interested in trying to advance and support the educational mission of the church.

We look at this as a long-term program. We're not going to use the principle. We would only want to use the interest, the income from this fund. The distribution of the fund would be made with the advice of an advisory group. This does mirror, does go along well with what Big Shoulders is trying to do. But Big Shoulders concentrates on the city and on scholarships for students in schools in the city. We have to take a look at a fund that's going to help all the schools of the Archdiocese both with operating grants as well as with scholarships. The bottom line is we need more money to help with more of the financial problems that face the schools. We also need to assist individual families who are trying to make that tough decision of whether or not it's worth $2,700, at the elementary level, and $5,500 or so, at the high school level, to attend the school of your choice.

This is the beginning of our attempt to address that need. This is a vehicle to receive money. We do not have a great deal of money in the fund at this point. It is a new idea, a vehicle so that when someone comes forward and says, "You know, we would like to make a donation to help support the Catholic schools," we have a vehicle ready to receive that gift.

Our vision down the road relative to finances is that Catholic schools are going to be funded through a number of means. There's three classic ways of funding Catholic schools. One, of course, would be tuition. We already said that 82 percent of the per pupil cost at the elementary level is funded through the tuition and fees.

The second way is through parish subsidy; the third is fundraising. Those are the three traditional ways we fund Catholic schools. To support our schools beyond that level, we're talking about the need for Big Shoulders contributions, the Archdiocesan fund, family tax credits and, hopefully, the corporate tax credit.

Secondly, we are going to establish a Catholic School Teacher Academy. We look upon this as a way of helping teachers further develop their skills so that they can benefit the young people with whom they come in contact daily. We are still in the beginning stages of thinking through how we would do that, but certainly we envision new teachers coming into that program to have their skills developed as well as inviting experienced teachers to further development. Hopefully, we'll use experienced teachers in as master teachers to help with part of the staff development. We are going to have some discussions with higher education institutions to invite them to help us work through this program. We have a lot of hope and excitement for this project. There are some other ideas under consideration. We will establish Children of Peace School as a regional school in the Archdiocese. This initiative would consolidate the two current campuses into one new building at a site to be determined. Here we would provide extended day-care programs as a service to families. Also, Holy Trinity's School for the deaf programs for hearing impaired students and their siblings would be incorporated.

This school would serve the diverse communities surrounding the University of Illinois, Chicago and University Village. The school would have a capacity for 600 students in grades pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. We have a lot of interest and excitement around this program. We've been working on it for a while, and it's beginning to take more and more shape.

Another initiative is the establishment of the Academy of St. Benedict the African in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood as a regional school of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The initiative would include a complete building upgrade and expansion at the school's Honore St. campus as well as renovations at the school's two other campuses. We will be looking more and more to regional schools -- again out of the sense of stewardship. We can't afford to keep all the schools open, but we are going to try and keep as many as possible open. We will focus our resources on what we consider schools that have long-term viability such as these regional schools.

On the West side, the Archdiocese is committed to strengthening the presence of Catholic education in the north Lawndale area. As you know, we just announced the closing of Blessed Sacrament/Our Lady of Lourdes there, but we are committed to staying in the neighborhood. This is an important message to get out. But we're looking at how best we can do that in that area.

Finally, there is the feasibility study currently being conducted to establish a new co-ed high school in the fast growing southwest suburbs to meet that area's growing demand for Catholic education.

Another initiative that we mentioned last week is the Our Lady Help of Christians Parish School to be modeled after the San Miguel School on 48th & Damen. This is an an exciting project. We hope that it will experience the same kind of success there as the current San Miguel School. We have every reason to believe that it will.

We will also have a new school at Immaculate Conception on north Clark Avenue. That school was closed a few years ago and we are now reopening it. We think this will be a very wonderful school serving a diverse population. We expect the kids from St. Joseph on Orleans to go up there as well as serve students from the immediate neighborhood.

The third school we announced that would be opening is Immaculate Conception School on South Shore. Also, two schools will be consolidated -- St. Matthias and Transfiguration. So, there are a number of things happening with which we're very pleased as we continue to make our schools available to all the children who want to attend them.

Our overall vision is one of strength. This is encouraging. We are proud of all of you in this room and elsewhere who helped to make the history of Catholic schools in this Archdiocese so wonderful. We're also excited about all of you with us who will make the future ever more bright.