PITTSBURGH – Enrollment in Pittsburgh’s Catholic schools is likely to spike in the wake of Bishop David Zubik’s March 18 announcement that his diocese will have nothing to do with Common Core.

Bishop Zubik – who is the highest authority on education in the diocese – made the announcement in a letter to parents, which began with a very gentle and generous explanation of the motivation behind the push for nationalized learning standards.

“The Common Core is a set of minimum standards, intended to help public schools with their effort to prepare students for higher education and the workforce,” he wrote.

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The bishop immediately followed that up by noting Pittsburgh’s Catholic schools “have always set higher standards, and we continue to challenge students to exceed those standards.”

That’s a very graceful and effective way of dismissing the Common Core experiment without stepping into the political crossfire that’s occurring all around this issue.

The bishop also reassured concerned Pittsburgh parents that the Catholic schools will not use any of the controversial and eyebrow-raising instructional materials that are showing up in some Common Core-aligned schools.

“Our Catholic faith guides the selection of all curricula, goals, textbooks and other resources,” Zubik wrote.

That commitment to decency will appeal to the growing number of parents who are disgusted by the cultural “race to the bottom” that’s occurring in many schools.

But the bishop wasn’t finished. He also addressed questions about the security of students’ personal and academic information by stating, “Schools in the Diocese of Pittsburgh do not share data on individual students with any state or federal databases.”

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The only problem with Zubik’s letter is his statement that “the Pennsylvania State Board of Education has not adopted Common Core.” In fact, the state board did adopt Common Core back in 2010. Zubik’s confusion may be due to the fact that state K-12 leaders have tweaked the nationalized learning standards and shrewdly rebranded them as “PA Core Standards.”

The name change is a silly attempt to address the serious concerns many parents, teachers and taxpayers have about the nationalized K-12 overhaul. Unfortunately, leaders in other states – such as Arizona – are contemplating a similar name change for Common Core, in the belief that will pacify critics.

It doesn’t appear to be working too well in Pennsylvania, judging from all the questions and concerns that spurred Bishop Zubik into writing his letter.

Speaking of that letter – and the bishop’s guarantees to keep Common Core out of the diocese – we won’t be surprised if Pittsburgh’s Catholic schools experience an enrollment boom in the months leading up to the 2014-15 school year.

Stay tuned.