Lapsed Catholic

There was a time, many moons ago, when my father-in-law thought it might be a good thing for my son to attend Saint Jarlath School, just up the street from us. The consideration my wife and I gave to this choice started and ended with the "up the street" part of that equation. For my father-in-law, it was the Saint that appealed to him. Maybe it was the lapsed part of the lapsed Catholic in him that hoped to get his grandson into school, and maybe a spot in heaven as well.
It was a blessedly short debate, and our son ended up walking up the hill to an Oakland Public School. After being promoted at the end of his  fifth grade year, he moved on to the middle school a few blocks away from his elementary school, and then off to high school across town. And every day he walked, rode his bike, and eventually drove his car past Saint Jarlath. There was never a lot of thought given to what might have been. He was the son of an Oakland Public School teacher, and so it was only natural that he walk past the Catholic School on his way to where he belonged.
Now Saint Jarlath is closed. The school, not the church that holds down the corner, but the classrooms that sit in its shadow. Over the summer, Bishop Barber sent word that declining enrollment and increasing costs were the reasons for closing their doors. Those factors are the same ones that have been responsible for any number of public school closures across Oakland and across the country.
The math for public schools is pretty simple: more students equals more money. When parents start sending their kids to charter schools, public schools lose funding. When parents take their kids out of private schools like Saint Jarlath, where do they go?
One option could be a charter school. Like the one that opened this fall on the site of Saint Jarlath. Lodesar, a "community public school" from the Lighthouse Family of schools, with a lot of words on their website to describe how very different they are from every other elementary school in Oakland, in California, on planet Earth. What is really different is the money. While the church runs its school from their coffers, and Oakland schools run on the money offered up by the state and federal government. Lodestar will get some of that good state and federal money, as well as supplemental funds from individuals and foundations. Those individuals  and foundations are encouraged to support those "underserved" students in Oakland.
And where do you suppose those underserved students came from? Most of us with a pubic school education can figure out that one.