Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 355
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 355

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

PARISH EDUCATION AND SERVICES 355

level need to examine proposed legislation carefully and
help to shape it to make it acceptable. Pennsylvania, one
of the states that has passed a law to provide aid to
parochial schools, authorizes “purchase of services”
from the parochial schools and specifies that the in-
structional services purchased must be totally secular.
This is an unacceptable provision. Acceptable legislation
authorizes aid to approved schools that provide “equiv-
alent” services within their own stated objectives.

Board of Parish Education Activities

The Board of Parish Education, in carrying out the
synodical resolution on federal aid, has studied the
problems and established significant contacts with the
U.S. Office of Education, legislators, a national confer-
ence that dealt with freedom and control in education,
the National Assessment program, and Citizens for Edu-
cational Freedom. The emphasis has been on keeping
informed, discussing problems and developments with
other representatives of nonpublic schools, and sharing
information with government officials. As authorized by
the 1965 convention resolution, these contacts have pro-
vided the occasion to explore the availability, utilization,
and administration of federal funds on an equitable basis
for children attending nonpublic schools.

Information secured in these contacts has been
shared with District Boards of Parish Education and
with congregations maintaining schools. District educa-
tion executives have, in turn, been helpful in discussions
at the state level and have helped congregations identify
how to secure benefits in cooperation with local public
schools.

Undoubtedly some of the contacts with the U.S. Of-
fice of Education in cooperation with other representa-
tives of nonpublic schools help shape legislation related
to federal aid for nonpublic schools and the administra-
tive arrangements that open up the possibility for schools
to secure such aid. Whether or not the Board of Parish
Education should be more aggressive in seeking in-
creased benefits remains to be determined. The Board
of Parish Education is continuing its study of the prob-
lem and will seek to represent the Synod as it has
opportunity.

Rationale for Public Aid

Seeking a rationale for supporting public aid for
Lutheran and other church-related schools will require
a frank admission that times have changed and that we
are making a break with our traditional position. It will
also require the determination to seek federal and state
aid with eyes open to both the benefits and the potential
dangers. Are the dangers and the fear of control being
overemphasized? Will alertness and constant vigilance
enable us to receive the benefits without losing our dis-
tinctiveness as Christian institutions? If the federal or
state government wanted to take away our rights, could
it not do so without providing aid for the schools? Would
any substantial amount of federal or state aid weaken
our stewardship efforts? Whatever the answer to these

questions, there is a calculated risk involving the future
of the schools.

In seeking a defensible posture toward public aid for
church-related schools, these would be likely compo-
nents of the rationale.

1) Reasons for Seeking Public Aid. Obviously non-
public schools cannot seek aid just because they need it.
There must be a national benefit involved. There are
several principal reasons for the acceptability of public
aid:

a) Education is mandatory.

b) Parents have a constitutional right to send their

child to a church-related school if they want the
theology and values which this school provides.

c) The country’s commitment to the pluralistic so-
ciety which has made the country great can be
expected to provide the options, even the financial
options, for any level of compulsory education.

d) Education involves competition, and the public
schools need competition in order that they may
maintain high standards of service in the secular
area to which they must confine themselves.

e) Nonpublic schools spend enormous sums of money
on education each year. To the extent that they
do this, they perform a public service and save the
taxpayer billions of dollars per year. This fact
demands sympathetic recognition.

2) Areas for Exploration. The area for exploration
of public support is as wide as education. Study may
show that some forms of assistance would not be de-
sirable or acceptable. Synodical boards need to continue
to explore the implications and adequacy of the following
kinds of aid:

a) Categorical assistance

b) Block grants to states

c) Student benefit assistance in all its forms

d) Parental-benefit assistance

e) Institutional program assistance

When state laws hinder what the federal constitution

permits, attempts to amend the constitutions would also
be within the purview of their efforts.

3) Activities. Should the Synod encourage efforts
toward obtaining additional public aid for its schools
on both the federal and state levels, these activities sug-
gest themselves:

a) To educate ourselves to our freedom of choice in
education and at the same time to free consciences
that may be unduly bound in the traditional view.

b) To affiliate with private and church-related edu-
cational groups with like-minded goals and coop-
erate with them in seeking benefits which may be
rightfully ours.

c) To concentrate principal attention on state depart-
ments of education and state legislatures in seek-
ing financial benefits, particularly bus transporta-