ST. LOUIS • Archbishop Robert Carlson plans to unveil his vision today for the region's Catholic schools in hopes of reversing four decades of declining enrollment.

Carlson is scheduled to announce his strategy at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Manchester, nearly two years after arriving in St. Louis and naming improving education as his top priority. But the concerns he hopes to address — renewing the schools' commitment to social justice, building up parishes, strengthening Catholic identity, making schools more affordable — date back decades.

In 2010 he began a series of listening sessions involving more than 3,000 people, including pastors, school administrators, parents and meetings with national experts. Through these and other meetings, Carlson has been developing strategies for the 148 schools in the 11-county archdiocese. In doing so, he is positioning the archdiocese to follow the lead of other large city Catholic school systems that have restructured to stem the loss of students.

At a summit at Rosati-Kain High School in March, Carlson acknowledged that one-third of Roman Catholic children do not attend their parish schools, and that more than half of them do not attend Catholic high schools.

To get these children in Catholic schools, he said, the church needs to stress the values of Catholic education, make schools affordable and improve academics. Catholic schools also need to renew their commitment to social justice and build up parishes, he said.

Elsewhere, the process of reversing enrollment declines has involved tackling contentious issues, such as having wealthier parishes subsidize struggling ones, and restructuring tuition.