The History of CSDP
Decades ago, Catholic elementary schools were funded primarily by parish subsidies; tuition contributions were minimal. In those days enrollments were high and costs low, as teaching and administration was provided by clergy and religious.
Today the situation is reversed. Enrollments have declined, and with an increased reliance on lay members have come higher costs. It costs more for Catholic elementary schools to educate students than they take in from tuition.
Responding to these trends, attorney and businessman Robert T. Healey founded the Catholic School Development Program in 2004. Mr. Healey sought to bring sound business principles and a dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit to supplement Catholic schools’ educational excellence and help them chart a bright future.
Shortly after its founding, CSDP launched its prototype program at two Catholic high schools in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey. Its success in the areas of fundraising and enrollment inspired Mr. Healey to orient the program’s focus toward elementary schools at the diocesan level, which were experiencing more pressing problems. In Mr. Healey’s view, if parochial elementary schools are permitted to fail, the entire Catholic educational system will be imperiled, with far-reaching, negative implications for the Church’s future.
CSDP soon engaged with the Camden Diocese’s 53 elementary schools. Program officials visited each school, interviewed more than 600 pastors, principals, parents, faculty, and staff, and produced a comprehensive report on the state of the diocese’s elementary education efforts. CSDP and the diocese continue to rely on that plan to strengthen the schools and make them “available, accessible, and affordable to all Catholic parents and their children,” as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops wrote in 2005.
The Catholic School Development Program is moving to replicate the results of the Camden Diocese in diocesan schools across the country. With a close eye on the future of Catholic education nationwide, CSDP has begun exploring partnerships with other dioceses in order to apply its model elsewhere.
