Dan Guernsey, the Cardinal Newman Society's director of K–12 programs, told The Heartland Institute that Common Core fails to provide a well-rounded education.
"Catholic schools can use parts of the Common Core, but the Common Core in and of itself is insufficient to guide education in Catholic schools," Guernsey said. "The Common Core does college/career prep. We adopt this broader approach and vision toward education, and parents will run to that. Parents will pay, if they can afford it, to get an uncommon education and have their children's depth of thought, compassion, humanity, and vision of man articulated. In the Common Core, we've lost this vision of humanity."
The diocese began the implementation of a classical curriculum last school year, and in April 2016, Marquette Superintendent of Schools Mark Salisbury told the Cardinal Newman Society that the diocese was "enthusiastic about our early successes."
Zach Good, the provost of Sacred Heart Academy, a classical Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been working with Marquette Diocese education personnel on the transition to a new curriculum. Good told The Heartland Institute that since his school's implementation of a classical curriculum, enrollment more than tripled, from 60 to 300 students. He said he largely credits the success of the program to the way it values parents as the primary educators of children, something that Common Core fails to do.
Andrew Seeley, executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE) told The Heartland Institute that the success of a classical Catholic education program is no surprise.
"The Catholic classical schools are deliberately immersing themselves in the Catholic tradition of education," he said.
"The Catholic Church has much more experience in educating successfully than any contemporary education proposal out there."