By Dennis Kellogg
Director of Communications
The Nebraska Catholic Conference’s education policy expert has been selected to participate in a national summit on education, policy and reform.
Jeremy Ekeler, associate director of education policy for the Nebraska Catholic Conference, will take part in the yearlong Reform Leaders’ Summit that is coordinated by the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame.
The Summit will bring national educational thought leaders together with about 40 aspiring leaders from across the education profession.
Ekeler, who was nominated for the program by a colleague from Maryland, will join K-12 teachers and school leaders, as well as higher education researchers and policy and advocacy professionals in the program. The participants will attend three immersion weekends in New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., and at Notre Dame over the course of a year. The Summit will conclude with smaller groups of leaders developing capstone projects focused on policy proposals for education.
Ekeler said one of the most beneficial aspects of the program will be developing a network of peers he can call on to talk through educational issues in Nebraska.
“The point of the Summit is really to see the best practices from around the country, to talk to the people who are leading the charge in a lot of these areas,” Ekeler said. “And also to talk honestly about places where we failed, so that others of us don’t do it down the road.”
Collin Gortner, who is one of the organizers of the Reform Leaders’ Summit, said the participants will be divided into subgroups called professional learning communities.
“And then within each of those subgroups, we try to encourage them to collaborate with one another because oftentimes they’re from different states, working on similar problems, but in different contexts,” Gortner said.
Ekeler will bring a variety of educational experience to the program. He has been a teacher at Pius X High School in Lincoln and principal at Cathedral of the Risen Christ Elementary School in Lincoln. He earned a master’s degree from St. Xavier University in Chicago. He has been focused on education policy at the Nebraska Catholic Conference since 2020.
Ekeler said his participation in the Summit comes at a critical time for Catholic education.
“We’ve entered this apostolic age where we can’t assume the culture is steeped in a Christian ethos anymore. That puts us in a new position,” Ekeler said. “It’s vital to understand what train we’re on. And the more I’ve looked into the program and talked to people about the program, that’s really what they’re focused on: how do Catholic schools and Catholic educators move on this new terrain? It doesn’t mean Christianity is dead. But we have to understand the turf we’re on and when we do it well, Christianity can really flourish. But if we’re kind of stuck in the old mode, we probably won’t.”
Ekeler said it’s important to consider innovative approaches to the issues facing Catholic education. He said those issues would include how to govern schools, how to approach special education, and how to evangelize students of color and low-income students. He added that the list would also include an issue he’s been working on a lot during the current session of the Nebraska Legislature – teacher shortages and how to attract quality educators to the classrooms.
There is one issue, though, that seems to be at the forefront for both the Reform Leaders’ Summit and for Catholic education in Nebraska.
“I think school choice is sort of an underlying theme or sort of a foundational piece, because it provides access to our schools. And this is a battle here in the United States we’ve been fighting since we opened Catholic schools in the country.”
Forty-eight states have passed some form of school choice policy. Nebraska is one of the two states that has not. Ekeler said Nebraska performs very well when one looks at the Catholic school enrollment compared with the state population ranking. However, he said, there are still thousands of students who don’t have access to Catholic schools because the state doesn’t have a school choice policy. A proposed bill before the Nebraska State Legislature would provide tax credits as the basis for such a policy.
“That’s essential because it does not touch the public school funding formula,” Ekeler said. “In order to have school choice, you need strong schools everywhere. We are not looking to damage the public schools. They are vital for society. A tax credit program, like any other tax credit, is simply an incentive to a donor.”
Gortner of the Reform Leaders’ Summit said the program was started 15 years ago in response to a recommendation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which reads, “As the primary educators of their children, parents have the right to choose the school best suited for them. The entire Catholic community should be encouraged to advocate for parental school choice and personal and corporate tax credits, which will help parents to fulfill their responsibility in educating their children.”
Gortner said that call from the bishops still is a guiding light for the Reform Leaders’ Summit.
“We still try to live up to that promise today, where we’re helping to deliver better education for all children. And we’re also trying to strengthen Catholic school communities.”
Ekeler said while Nebraska hasn’t broken through the school choice ceiling yet, the state has had plenty of successes when it comes to developing education policy.
“Things like school safety measures, working with educational service units, textbook loan programs, those are places where we’ve become aggressive and it’s been widely acknowledged that our schools do a great job.”
Ekeler is looking forward to sharing those successes with the other educational leaders from across the country during the Summit.
Gortner said he would encourage other Nebraska school teachers, administrators, policy advocacy professionals and higher education researchers interested in applying for this program to seek out more information on the Reform Leaders’ Summit website. The deadline to apply for the upcoming Summit is March 3.
You can watch a video of Jeremy Ekeler explaining school choice legislation in Nebraska on the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln Facebook page.
