New top-flight Catholic school coming to Florida

Tampa, Fla. may soon become a hub for a new breed of Catholic schools that target disadvantaged students and help them get to college.

The latest sign: The Cristo Rey Network planning to open one of its high schools in the city. The new school is set to open in 2016.

The Chicago-based network operates 28 college-preparatory Catholic schools around the country. Its model for urban faith-based education has been praised for its success with low-income and minority students.

Cristo Rey schools  are aimed at students from families earning less than $44,000 year, and proclaim that all of their recent graduates have been accepted to college. Students participate in work-study programs that help cover their tuition costs. They spend one day a week working in professional settings like banks, hospitals and law firms.

While they operate with the blessing of local church leaders, the Cristo Rey’s governance and operations are separate from parishes and dioceses that traditionally run Catholic schools. The network’s unique organizational structure has gotten the attention of some school choice advocates, who have approvingly likened it to high-impact charter school organizations.

The Cristo Rey Tampa High School is set join another relatively new family of urban Catholic schools that recently set up shop in the region: The Notre Dame ACE Academies.

Both Tampa Bay-area ACE schools serve students up to eighth grade. Like the Cristo Rey schools, they stress college attendance and offer a Catholic education to low-income students from a variety of religious backgrounds (more than 40 percent of Cristo Rey students are non-Catholic).

These schools target states like Florida, Louisiana and Arizona that offer private school tuition scholarships to low-income students. The Florida tax credit scholarship program is one such program. It is administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.