November 16, 2000

The annual National Conference of Catholic Bishops' meeting in Washington has come to a close. Your week-long agenda included many policy items of significance for the Church in America. However, nowhere on the agenda was the issue of lay teachers in Catholic elementary and secondary schools.

On Sunday, November 12, 2000, representatives of the National Association of Catholic School Teachers personally delivered to you and your fellow bishops our first annual BISHOPS' REPORT CARD. At a Rally held outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the union which is committed to achieving justice and dignity for Catholic lay teachers unveiled a large replica of the enclosed Report Card, grading the U.S. Bishops' performance in relation to their lay teachers in the areas of Core Responsibilities, Social Skills and Classroom Work.

As good and faithful employees, we, your lay teachers, have waited patiently for you, our ultimate employers, to put into practice the social justice teachings you have promulgated; to give more than lip service to the directives you publish for other employers concerning justice and dignity for workers. We have hoped in vain that the Bishops would follow the tenets of their 1986 Economic Pastoral where their own workers are concerned. Unfortunately, this has not happened.

As you can see, the U.S. Bishops have received failing grades in  SALARY, JOB SECURITY, CONFLICT RESOLUTION and RIGHT TO ORGANIZE under Core Responsibilities. You were also graded F in the Social Skills LEADERSHIP and SHARING. The teacher comments explain why you have received failing grades in these as well as four out of six areas of Classroom Work. All together, there were 10 F's and three D-'s, giving an overall grade point average of 0.16.

It is the hope of the National Association of Catholic School Teachers that with the issuance of this first annual Report Card, the U.S. Bishops will work very hard to remove the failures they have received from their teachers and bring the D- grades up to more acceptable standards. Only then will Catholic School lay teachers gain the voice they so desperately need, the justice and dignity they deserve and the respect they must earn every day.

We would be pleased to discuss this most important matter with your representatives in the expectation that we could work together to ensure that Catholic School Teachers, the most important facet of Catholic School education, would then be treated well by their employers and become the "true partners in the educational enterprise," of .which the Bishops spoke in TO TEACH AS JESUS DID.

Sincerely,
/s/ Rita C. Schwartz
President