News // Institute for Educational Initiatives

Action Research in Catholic Schools: A Step-by-Step Guide for Practitioners

2009-06-17T13:08:01-04:00

IEI Fellows Drs. Anthony Holter and James Frabutt have published Action Research in Catholic Schools: A Step-by-Step Guide for Practitioners, a companion text to their recent publication Research, Action, and Change: Leaders Reshaping Catholic Schools (Frabutt, Holter, & Nuzzi, 2008). Action Research in Catholic Schools provides a structured guide to developing a compelling action research project, an undertaking that is well suited for school leaders wishing to use sound research methodology for the sake of educational improvement.

The guidebook includes key features to facilitate the design and implementation of an action research project, including an example research scenario, step-by-step modules for completing an action research project, mini-lab exercises, and testimony from Catholic school educators who have already integrated action research into their roles as administrators and practitioners.

According to the authors, ”action research done well is more than an academic exercise, it is an orientation toward educational leadership that values critical examination of the school community, it is a process that engages and edifies stakeholders, and it is a set of outcomes that seek positive change.”

To purchase a copy of Action Research in Catholic Schools: A Step-by-Step Guide for Practitioners, click here.

Research, Action, and Change: Leaders Reshaping Catholic Schools

2009-01-05T21:48:01-05:00

Three professors in Notre Dame’s Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program in the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) are the authors of a forthcoming book that presents a promising “new way to sustain and strengthen Catholic schools” through action research. Research, Action, and Change: Leaders Reshaping Catholic Schools by James Frabutt, Ph.D., Anthony Holter, Ph.D., and Ronald Nuzzi, Ph.D., was recently released by the Alliance for Catholic Education Press and features original action research contributions from eight Catholic school leaders throughout the United States.

Authors Frabutt, Holter and Nuzzi acknowledge early on in their work that research is a practice traditionally left to academia, not to classroom or administrative practitioners engaged in the day-to-day work of schools. The latter have typically been passive recipients or users of findings from research done by education scholars. However, because action researchers systematically explore challenges in their school, they bridge the traditional gap between researcher and practitioner and are empowered to make data driven decisions for the sake of educational improvement. This applied approach to research responds to the urging of the Congregation for Catholic Education for “courageous renewal” in Catholic schools.

The action research of Jocelyn Pierre-Antoine, a member of the fourth ACE Leadership cohort and the inaugural recipient of the (2008) Action Research in Catholic Education Award of Excellence, illustrates the great change and growth that is possible in a school community when leaders use an inquiry-oriented approach to their work in the classrooms and with one another. Pierre-Antoine currently teaches at St. Edward School, a pre-K-8 school in the Diocese of Oakland, California. Her action research identified the importance of the new staff members at St. Edward School learning about the charism of its founding religious congregation, the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. The interviews and data collected through her research served as the foundation for three educational and spiritual formation sessions wherein current and former principals of the school shared with faculty members the history of their congregation and its charism.

“As a Catholic school leader, action research empowered me to use the lens of hope and creativity to provide life-giving solutions that will help our school community foster the Dominican presence even after the Mission San Jose Dominican Sisters are no longer able to minister at our school,” said Pierre-Antoine.

Connections between the practice of action research and the faith tradition of the Catholic Church are well emphasized throughout the book. After defining action research and uncovering its history in education, the authors address how it is infused with both Catholic spirituality and community. This model is further illuminated by the examples of action research offered by practicing Catholic leaders, which make up the “heart of the text.” According to the authors, “…their work testifies to a deep incarnational view of the world, one which sees God’s grace manifested in the school and God’s will being done in the classroom” (p. 6 ).

Contributors to Research, Action, and Change are graduates of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program with M.A. degrees in Educational Administration, and currently serve as Catholic leaders in schools and dioceses throughout the United States. Nearly all of them presented their research at the ACE Leadership Conference held in July 2008, and many have gone on to present at other national conferences.

In keeping with the authors’ intention to inspire a new generation of leaders for Catholic schools, Research, Action, and Change will be used as required reading for future cohorts in the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program in the Alliance for Catholic Education. The program began in 2002 as an extension of the University of Notre Dame’s nationally recognized Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Program. Led by the Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, Ph.D., the program provides an intensive 26-month experience, encompassing the dispositions of becoming a professional administrator, fostering school community, and promoting spiritual formation. The Remick Leadership Program is responsive to the ongoing needs of Catholic schools across the country for qualified, faith-filled leaders to serve as principals, and now prepares more people for Catholic school leadership than any other program in the nation.

CLICK HERE to purchase a copy of Research, Action, and Change: Leaders Reshaping Catholic Schools

Faith, Finances and the Future: The Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors

2009-01-05T21:46:01-05:00

by Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, James Frabutt & Anthony Holter

Three Notre Dame professors, Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, James Frabutt and Anthony Holter, have recently completed a national research study, Faith, Finances and the Future: The Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors, to be published by The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Press. The report presents findings from a 2008 nationwide study of pastors with responsibility for Catholic schools, as well as recommendations for addressing the most pressing issues those pastors identified. Only the third such study in the history of American Catholic education, and the first in nearly ten years, the Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors is a systematic analysis of pastors’ needs and perceptions regarding Catholic schools and Catholic education.

Over two thousand pastors from nearly every diocese in the country were contacted to participate in the study, the findings of which indicated that “regardless of location of the parish school, pastors consistently identified Catholic identity and finances as the two most important needs facing their schools.” Findings also show that pastors who believe the mission of their parish school is valued and supported by Catholic institutions of higher education tend to value the school more significantly than those pastors who do not perceive such external support for their schools.

The authors of the study offer several recommendations to address the needs illuminated by their findings. In the area of finances, they propose that Catholic school systems decrease expenses by establishing regional or national cooperatives to cut health care and energy costs, as a few dioceses have already successfully accomplished. At the same time, the authors suggest, Catholic schools can increase revenues by better accessing federal and state funds available to them, becoming more active in the school choice arena, and taking a more sophisticated approach to pooled investments.

In regard to the Catholic identity needs the pastors expressed, the research team recommends that the school community be more consciously integrated into the overall life of the parish, so that the schools might be seen “as an integral part of the parish’s larger pastoral services framework.” Increasing efforts to sustain and strengthen the spiritual growth of faculty and staff is also proposed as a means of enhancing the Catholicity of schools.

Workshops about the study, its findings, and subsequent recommendations are available to diocesan leaders and Catholic school system adminstrators upon request.

The Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors is just one of many recent undertakings of the ACE program in response to the final report of the Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Education, entitled Making God Known, Loved, and Served. The Task Force, convened in 2005 by University of Notre Dame President, Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, was comprised of 50 leaders from throughout the country, including Catholic educators, diocesan representatives, philanthropists, investment specialists and Notre Dame faculty and staff, and was chaired by Rev. Timothy R. Scully, CSC, founder of the ACE Program.

The Task Force’s report outlines twelve strategic objectives for the University of Notre Dame to help meet the most pressing needs of our nation’s elementary and secondary Catholic schools; to date over 10,000 copies have been distributed to dioceses and Catholic school systems across the nation. Among many recommendations and action steps for the renewal of Catholic education, the report recognized the uniquely important role of the pastor and that no effort to serve Catholic schools can succeed without them.

“Identifying and then responding to the needs of pastors with schools is an important step in the ongoing revitalization of Catholic education and continues the ACE mission to sustain , strengthen, and transform our Catholic schools,” says Rev. Ronald Nuzzi.

READ the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of the THE NOTRE DAME STUDY of U.S. PASTORS HERE

PURCHASE A COPY of FAITH, FINANCES and the FUTURE HERE