A.M. Science, P.M. God

The 27 youngsters are juniors and seniors at Roman Catholic St. Thomas High School in mill-town Braddock near Pittsburgh. But every morning at 7 they board a public school bus and ride 13 miles to tax-supported Forbes Trail Area Technical School in Monroeville. For three hours at Forbes, a lavish technical citadel serving 15 other Allegheny County schools on a part-time basis, the Catholic kids study such nonreligious matters as computer programming and chemical technology. Then they ride a bus to St. Thomas High for an afternoon of religion, social studies and English in a "God-centered" climate.

St. Thomas this week thus launched the nation's most discussed test of "shared time,'' a possible way around the prickly problem of federal aid to parochial schools. Originally suggested by Protestants, shared time rests on the principle that all taxpayers are entitled to use public schools. If it works in Monroeville, parochial schools might be helped by federal money given to public schools for shared-time projects.

Religious Illiteracy. For many Catholic parents, the hard choice is between ill-equipped, overcrowded parochial schools and public schools that threaten Catholic children with what Pittsburgh's diocesan school superintendent, the Very Rev. Msgr. John B. McDowell, calls "religious illiteracy." McDowell also warns that non-Catholics in many areas face an equal problem if Catholics are forced to cut back their own schools and thousands of youngsters flood the public schools.

McDowell calls shared time "more reasonable," but it still gets a cool reaction from many public school administrators. ''If we fracture our curriculum," says one, "what remains for public schools to teach?" Even cooler are those Catholic educators who feel not only that every subject--even electronics--needs religious interpretation, but that U.S. Catholics are rich enough to pay for bigger and better parochial schools.

Checking Secularism. Various versions of shared time have nonetheless cropped up recently in many states, including Michigan, Ohio, Connecticut, Illinois and Minnesota. In the Saginaw, Mich., area, one-fifth (300) of all youngsters at seven Catholic schools use public schools for technical training. In Chicago, Catholics are now mulling an even closer link: building parochial schools near public schools for easy access.

For Catholics, the advantage would be cheaper parochial schools (no labs, gyms, cafeterias) handling twice as many "value-oriented" students via half-day sessions. As Catholics see it, a controlled Catholic influx would also make public schools more representative of the community. If other churches also built shared-time schools, suggests the Very Rev. Msgr. Arthur T. Geoghegan, diocesan school superintendent in Providence, R.I., "the drift of secularism might be checked."

In Pennsylvania's heavily Catholic Allegheny County, partial shared time is not new. More than 5,000 parochial school students already take home economics and industrial arts in Pittsburgh city schools. But they do not report daily, go on their own. St. Thomas High's youngsters are uniquely integrated with Forbes Trail School. In approving the scheme, Allegheny County School Superintendent Alfred Beattie cased every possible legal trap. While riding on the bus, the youngsters are defined as public school students. To avoid problems, they even get on and off at public Braddock High School, walk the two blocks to St. Thomas.

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