Continuing an annual winter ritual, the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn have announced permanent Catholic school closures for the coming year. The number so far is small: five in the Bronx, one in Harlem, and one in Brooklyn. More troubling, however, is that three of these schools—St. Mark the Evangelist in Harlem and Sacred Heart and Immaculate Conception in the Bronx—had been part of the most promising school turnaround model in the country. That model was run by the nonprofit Partnership Schools, whose contract with the archdiocese ended last year.
