The folks who should be credited for the idea of public education (but are not because they weren't in this country) are quietly dwindling away.
Now mind you, this isn't another made-up Luther idea: Martin Luther actually recommended to city fathers in Germany that ALL children should be allowed to attend school at least half a day. He cites reasons such as educated citizens are better citizens, among other reasons.
This year at least four Lutheran schools (two of them named Hope--hence we are Hope-less) in my heavily Lutheran city are closing due to lack of students. I don't know how many more in the country are following suit. I know of many others around the country who are barely staying afloat--in fact, this may be their last school year.
One school I taught at used to have multiple classrooms per grade. Now it has multiple grades per class room. The school I attended as a child used to have over 100 students. Now it barely has 30. Other schools can't afford to pay their faculty. Others are asking faculty to voluntarily leave so the school doesn't have to make the hard decision of which to ask to leave. Teachers who are looking for positions in Lutheran schools are looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
What are the factors causing this? My mother asserts it's the charter schools. It's like having a free, private education right in your own school district. The local newspaper, when running a story on the plight of Catholic schools in the city (which, interestingly, one could have inserted "Lutheran" for every time "Catholic" was used in the story and end up with pretty much the same article and it would be no less true), asserted one of the problems was birth rate. The church members aren't having as many children. My mother had four children. To date, she has only four grandchildren. Just to be equal her rate, she should have sixteen grandchildren, all attending Lutheran schools.
As a Lutheran teacher I have heard many excuses.
*"That school has band/choir/art/underwater basket weaving. . ." Okay, but what happens in a budget cut? Besides, if you really want the extra curriculars, find like-minded parents who can help you start it in your own school.
*"I can't afford it." One always has to calculate what one can and can't afford, but should a child's education not be a priority in the family budget behind other luxury items?
* "They get religious education on Sunday." If the child comes to Sunday school. However, how can 45 minutes once a week compare with 45 minutes a day?
* "The public schools are just as good." If you compare raw data, sure, the public schools are equal, and may even surpass. Yet test scores do not make equality. This excuse is probably the most vexing to me when said by Christian parents. If a parent truly wants to rear their child in the faith, a public school will not do it. Public schools must teach every teaching that comes their way, especially those that deny Christianity. That's fine if you want to teach your child to deny Christianity themselves.
I hear the mutters of the nay-sayers now. Everything from "that's as it should be--religious training is child abuse" to "you gotta teach them to be open-minded" to "hey, it makes them stronger in their faith." If you fall in the first mindset, I'm not even going to touch that argument, because no matter what I say, it will be wrong. As for the other arguments, they are fallacies. Having attended a public high school myself, I can say for a fact that there were plenty of people teachers and students who believed I was closed-minded and tried diligently to convert me to non-religion. This from people who also taught that all beliefs were to be respected and accepted. Therefore I should give up mine? It tested me and I became stronger, but some of my friends acquiesced.
This post, however, is not to quibble over such. It is to hold up Lutheran schools as good, solid schools where students can still learn how to read, write, draw, sing, think, and pray.
