rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "More About Mary Lou College":
From what I have observed, Mr. Baker's comments seem appropriate. Our youngest daughter is a junior at an area Lutheran high school. This means that they get a meeting with the guidance director. They really push MLC on these unsuspecting students and their parents. Please consider the following scenario: The area Lutheran high schools were there to provide a Christian alternative to the allegedly evil, secular public high schools. They were never intended to be prep schools. Yet, the prep schools have fallen out of vogue. The ALHS is now supposed to fill the void. The ALHS is supported by federation congregations. Yet, many have a "development director", whose purpose is to recruit from the community. At the junior level religion class, they are getting exams with fill in the blank questions from the Small Catechism. One would think that they would be on to the Large Catechism or anything else from the BOC. Like most of the WELS, the BOC has been relegated to the status of an ancient relic.
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GJ - Wayne Mueller and SP Gurgle rocketed the tuition up for preps and the colleges. That provided cash flow for a failing synod. More than one person said they lost a generation of students from such genius leadership, and that was after St. Marvin of Schwan blessed them with millions and millions to mismanage.
Before, a student could go to a synod prep or college and consider a church vocation, because the tuition was not burdensome. Now it is.
People have to wonder if synod schools are really an alternative. They are not high quality in education, whether measured by doctrinal teaching or basic educational skills (like spelling).
3 comments:
When only a fraction of MLC graduates receive calls and end up teaching, does it make sense to try to increase enrollment at MLC? Like other denominations, they need to investigate having multi-track colleges where being a teacher and pastor is just two of many career tracks, and multi-denominational seminaries like those that exist in many US states and Canada.
Not high quality in comparison to...? Any specific examples of public high schools that you're referring to?
Comparatively speaking, attending my "ALHS" was one hundred times better than the alternative (i.e. Milwaukee Public Schools).
Regarding the comment about the "fill in the blank" Small Catechism in Junior religion class - I am surprised they utilized one of our confessional statements at all. In my WELS educational career, the only text utilized was the Small Catechism in Confirmation class, from the 5th-8th grades. In high school, it was virtually all material created by the instructor (at least I *think* the instructors made the material).
As an anecdote, in one of the Senior elective religion classes during my final semester of high school, the teacher asked how many people had read the entire bible by that point in their lives. Only one person raised their hand in the entire class.
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