New York Times: "Feliz Dia de San Patricio"

This St. Patrick's Day, the Irish prime minister will once again present the American president with a Waterford bowl filled with shamrocks in a tradition that dates to Harry Truman.

In the East Room reception, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of hod carriers and bricklayers will partake of corned beef sandwiches prepared by the White House chef. Amid tales of St. Patrick ridding Ireland of snakes and gentle jabs at the British, it will fundamentally be a celebration of upward mobility and the rise of the Irish in America.

St. Patrick will get his due. So will those hardworking ancestors. But for all the speechifying, what will likely go unheralded is the singular achievement of the Irish in their adopted homeland: the Catholic school system that stretches across the nation and ranges from kindergarten through college.

There's the pity. Because just as they did in the days of the great Irish migrations, Catholic schools in our own time hold out perhaps the best hope for the assimilation and upward advancement of a new wave of immigrants: Latinos.

"What the Irish were to our country in the 19th century, Latinos are for our nation in the 21st century," says the Rev. Timothy Scully, CSC, cofounder of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

"Former Mayor Ed Koch once famously remarked that 'When masses of immigrants reached our shores in the 19th century, they were greeted by two women: Lady Liberty and Mother Church,' " says Father Scully. "What Mayor Koch was referring to, of course, were the parish schools. What the Catholic schools did for the Irish then, Catholic schools must and will do for Latinos today."

Most of the political debate about Latinos and education has been consumed by the Dream Act. Aimed at helping those brought here illegally as children, part of its focus is on encouraging law-abiding Latinos who make it through high school and college.

The reality, however, is that Latinos have a larger problem, whatever their legal status. Begin with this: Only 16% of the Latino high-school students in America are college ready, according to Notre Dame's Task Force on the Participation of Latino Children and Families in Catholic Schools. Barely half graduate from high school in four years.

So what kind of dream is it to design programs geared to college when most Latino kids are written off before they can even start?

Then again, we've been here before. Back when hundreds of thousands of unskilled Irish were pouring in, their relationship to America's public schools was a tremendous source of conflict. Catholics didn't like the Protestant Bible used in public schools or the Protestant reading of world history that was taught.

By contrast, some Protestants feared the Catholic schools would be an obstacle to assimilation, incubating anti-American colonies in the heart of the republic.

From today's vantage we can see how misplaced these fears were. These schools lifted millions of Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans and other European immigrants into mainstream society. In these schools, children not only learned the skills that would propel them into the middle class, they were instilled with an appreciation for American virtues, American institutions and American exceptionalism.

The rise of a Catholic school system, in short, was an American achievement--the more stunning because it was pulled off by a poor, immigrant people.

Notre Dame was itself built by these Irish and became an icon for Irish and immigrant success. Today, through ACE's Catholic Advantage program, the university is trying to ensure Latinos have the same opportunities.

Unlike the Irish, Latinos don't come here with the advantage of English. Unlike the immigrant Irish of yesteryear, they haven't embraced the Catholic schools: Overall Latinos count for only 3% of the Catholic-school enrollment in the U.S.

But if the challenges are daunting the benefits are clear: Latinos who attend Catholic schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school. They are 2½ times more likely to graduate from college. And the Catholic nature of the schools means there is some natural overlap with the Latin American cultures from whence these new arrivals have come.

Put it this way: Is it really all that hard to believe that a Latino schoolgirl might be more comfortable mastering English and embracing American culture if she is learning in a school where she sees, say, a print of Our Lady of Guadalupe--patroness of all the Americas--hanging on the wall?

"On St. Patrick's Day we celebrate the mutual blessings that America was for the Irish and the Irish were for America," says Father Scully.

"We believe one day the same will be said of Latinos now arriving on our shores. At least if the Catholic schools have anything to do with it."