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Salaries, State Funding, and Outreach

Salaries
It was years ago that the question was thrust at me, yet I hear it still. I was in the office of Alice Lee, director of Children's Welfare in Hong Kong. I had excitedly presented her with detailed plans to open two additional Lutheran Roof-Top Schools. These were agencies on the fenced-in flat roofs of the massive 7-story resettlement estates housing thousands of refugees. For three hours a day, at a tuition of 50 cents per month, we taught the children the three "Rs," supplied them with Lutheran World Relief milk to drink, and shared the love of Christ.

Mrs. Lee looked at my budget and then said, "Mr. Kieschnick, do you consider yourself a moral person?"

I stammered my reply.

She countered, "Then how do you justify these immorally low salaries you are paying these educators of young children?"

That same question surfaced recently when the Web site of the Evangelical Lutheran Education Association displayed salary schedules for workers in our ELCA early childhood education (ECE) centers. While some churches paid responsible salaries and benefits, others were abysmally low.

How can we continue to pay salaries that send the message that caring for young children is worthy of little remuneration? How can some congregations take fees from parents in our centers and then use those fees to offset poor financial stewardship of members? How can teachers value their own worth so low that they refuse to act professionally and be financially rewarded? Are we being morally responsible?

We all have a stake in ensuring that those who minister in our ECE centers are justly paid. Pastors need to be advocates. Directors need to be relentless in pushing for professional quality service and salary. Citizens need to see that quality education of the young must be a national priority and allocate resources accordingly. The church can take the lead in demonstrating (also in salary schedules) that caring for young children is vital, valued, and adequately paid for.

State-Funded ECE
It's clearly a national trend. States are increasingly funding early childhood education. Some have set the goal of universal early childhood education, all paid for by tax dollars. How will the nearly 2,000 ELCA congregations currently providing this service react?

Some, especially in the salt-water synods, are already responding and doing it creatively and well. Marlene Lund, director of the Lutheran Schools Association of Metro New York, reports, "Our Lutheran schools have responded to Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) by seeing it as an opportunity much more than as a threat, and it's working well."

The New York model allows for state-funded ECE to be provided by selected state-certified nonpublic agencies such as churches. The UPK is a half-day program. But parents like full-day programs so the churches provide for the remaining half-day. The morning sessions meet state standards by not teaching religion.

In the halfday that is not UPK, Bible stories, religious songs, and prayers are taught. Parents are invited into the church community. The money that is gained from UPK allows the schools to charge less for the remainder of the day, which assists particularly poor parents who could not otherwise afford full-day care.

Gayle Denny, executive director of the Evangelical Lutheran Education Association, is monitoring this nationwide move toward government funding of ECE. She notes that most states will contract with private high-quality accredited providers at the pre-kindergarten level.

For Lutherans to best respond, they need to understand the policies of their particular state. They also need to know that every state and every parent will be looking for indicators of quality instruction offered by officially qualified and certified professional staff. Articulation of the Christian faith and expressions of that faith in music, art, or prayers will fall outside allowable practices. However, adding an optional half hour or hour-long program in which this religious instruction occurs is sometimes acceptable and effective for responding to the growth of state-funded ECE.

Another option is for the Lutheran school to choose to not participate in any state-funded program but to intentionally and publicly offer an alternative: that of a church-sponsored, intentionally Christian, fee-driven, high quality education. There will always be parents who will seek and pay for this marvelous ministry. It usually needs to be full service, day-long, and year-round.

Free K-12 public schooling has been available for most of our nation's history. Yet 12 to 20 percent of all school-aged children have always been enrolled in nonpublic schools; almost all church related. This demand will continue as parents exercise choice in selecting their child's early education. But some parents who desperately want this for their children will not have money to pay the fees. So congregations and schools need to be creative, proactive, and consistent in seeking third-party funds to make these "nurseries of Christian knowledge" as broadly available as possible.

Evangelistic Outreach
When I called Pastor Bill to set up an appointment to visit his church and preschool, he said, "Come early." I did. There he was at the beginning of the day, welcoming not only the staff as they arrived but also all of the children in his program. A hearty "Good morning, pastor!" was repeated about a hundred times that morning, by both children and parents. And he knew many of them by name — and a majority of them had names not usually given in Lutheran baptism! It was this early-childhood center and its ministry that was the entry point for his growing congregation and its outreach into its ethnically diverse neighborhood.

When I visited Pastor H and the preschool at his church, the story was amazingly different. I observed the children eating and wondered out loud, "Would these children ever be taught ‘God is great, God is good, and we thank God for this food'?"

"Oh, no," he told me in the strongest voice possible. "We have children here of all faiths and of no faith. We would never think of using our school as a proselytizing agency. This is strictly a community service, and I keep myself out of it."

It is my belief that all education has a religious-spiritual dimension. I would hope all of our Lutheran agencies would be places where the gospel is both demonstrated and articulated.

Donna Braband, ELCA director for schools, cites research data showing that congregations with schools and preschools on average gain many more new members than congregations without schools. Of course, there are many reasons other than just the school factor involved. Yet even factoring in these variables would, I believe, demonstrate that our schools and centers provide marvelous opportunities for evangelistic outreach and congregational membership recruitment. To fail to utilize these opportunities is a loss to children and their families and to our congregations.

So the opportunities await. Pay adequate salaries. Recognize new opportunities in changing social environments. Teach the gospel. Let the children come.

Melvin M. Kieschnick, an associate in ministry, served Lutheran schools both nationally and internationally for fifty years. In retirement he serves as a staff associate for Wheat Ridge Ministries.