A Spotlight on Education

As we near the end of August, our attention naturally shifts from the leisure activities of summer to the more structured activities of the Fall and beyond.  Education is surely one of these.

No doubt you are aware of the great turmoil being experienced within the educational sphere. Some of that turmoil is still tied to the lingering effects of the COVID lockdowns, but increasingly it relates to the wide variety of new radical policies and educational concepts our children are being exposed to, especially within public education. Consequently, there is a growing level of frustration among many educators and an even greater level of dissatisfaction among parents. In response, many of these parents are actively searching for other options: either schools they might access outside the public education system or new ways of encouraging their local school boards to resist these unwelcome State and Federal intrusions.

In addition to the changes being forced on schools through rapidly evolving school curricula and policies, there is also a parallel effort to push these same radical ideas directly on our public school teachers via a set of drastic changes to the Minnesota State Teacher Licensing Standards. These new standards would have to be met by both current teachers (when applying for re-licensure) and by students studying to become teachers for the first time. In doing so, all teachers will be exposed to and forced to espouse a radical progressive worldview which has become the new orthodoxy of the State education establishment.

To assist parents and interested others in understanding and responding to these challenges and opportunities, I’ve attached two resources which I’d encourage you to share with your congregation and/or school community. The first is a flyer introducing and explaining a new public policy “tool” called an Education Savings Account (ESA). This is a mechanism which gives parents the financial capacity to choose a new, non-public school for their child, if they so desire. It also gives parents who desire to stay in the “public system,” a new form of financial leverage, encouraging school systems to take the concerns of parents seriously. In addition, this resource introduces people to Opportunity for All Kids (OAK), the primary organization dedicated to getting ESAs enacted into law here in Minnesota.

The second resource is a letter recently sent to administrators of non-public schools across Minnesota by the Child Protection League. It outlines the nature of the threat posed to our children by the proposed new State of Minnesota Teacher Licensure Standards, as well as ways of responding to that threat.

In the end, I hope you’ll strongly consider helping to get the word out by distributing these resources to those in your sphere of influence, so they might better grasp both the threat posed by these new proposed teacher licensing standards and the promise offered by Education Savings Accounts. These are pivotal times in our society, and as Christian people we are called not only to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but also to care for the physical and social well-being of our neighbor.  One impactful way of doing that is to understand the nature of the rapidly changing world in which we live and to respond to these changes in Christ-like ways. Indeed, such is our baptismal calling.

The Lord’s blessings to you as you live out that calling in community.

In Christ,
Rev. Fredric Hinz
LCMS Public Policy Advocate
Minnesota South and North Districts