What are Catholic colleges and universities doing to help save the system of Catholic K-12 education that feeds into them? What should they do?

In a recent survey of US Pastors regarding their perceptions and attitudes toward Catholic K-12 schools ("Faith, Finances, and the Future: The Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors"), Ron Nuzzi, Anthony Holter, and James Frabutt learned that most US Pastors who oversee a Catholic school "did not perceive the mission of their schools to be supported by Catholic institutions of higher education." According to the same study, only 17% of those surveyed reported any active partnership with a Catholic college or university. Nuzzi, Holter, and Frabutt--who are employed by the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Educational Initiatives--suggest this is highly disappointing, especially considering that those few pastors that did sense the support of a Catholic college or university were much more likely to value their Catholic grade school.

This common impression of the pastors reinforces findings from a different study conducted in 2002 by John Watzke. This study looked at Catholic university teacher education programs and learned that less than 1/3 of the faculty of Catholic college teacher training programs "have any experience in Catholic schools (as a student, teacher, or administrator)." If less than 1/3 of the faculty have ever experienced a Catholic school at any level, how can we expect these same faculty to take a lead in training the future leaders and educators of that same system?

This is not to imply that nothing is being done by our Catholic Universities (Just check out the University Consortium for Catholic Education for some great examples). But one would hope for higher positive response rates the next time a survey is done.