Why Lutheran Education?

Bring up your children in the training (paideia) and instruction of the Lord.  Ephesians 6:4

• Lutheran Schools are loving, caring, safe.
• Lutheran Schools are thoroughly Christ-centered, evangelical, and Bible based – committed to planting and nurturing a Christian worldview in students’ lives, lifestyles, and hearts.
• Lutheran Schools pursue and offer excellence and quality.

Stable, Large, Experienced, Successful

• The Lutheran School system reaches over 288,000 students nationwide.
• The Lutheran School system is the largest Protestant school system in the United States. There are over 2,526 preschools, elementary and middle schools, high schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries that make up LCMS schools nationwide.
• The Lutheran School system operates 130 high schools across the nation.
  
• The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod operates 10 high quality liberal arts universities across the nation -- Concordia University-Irvine is in our backyard!  These universities prepare students not just for making a living, but more importantly for "making a life" that makes a difference for Christ.  All of our universities have highly respected teacher education and certification programs to resource the Lutheran schools across the nation and world.

Academically Excellent

• Lutheran school students test 23% higher than the national average on standard achievement tests.
• Average SAT/ACT test scores of students attending Lutheran high schools are well above the national average. Students in Lutheran schools at every grade level, and especially in middle school and high school, have more developmental assets than students in public schools, according to Search Institute.

Christ-centered and Mission Minded

• Since our schools are "mission outposts," sharing the love of Christ is central to everything we do and say.   Our faith is integrated across the curriculum.  As a result, many children are baptized and many families join congregations and become active in the life of the church.

Lutheran Schools Make a Difference that Matters *

• Reliable statistical research* from a study of people who attended Lutheran schools reveals that they...

1) report more frequent experiences with the Lord in their personal lives

2) exhibit a more consistent belief in Jesus

3) profess a greater clarity on the way of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone

4) display more Biblical knowledge

5) engage in a fuller devotional life

6) do more witnessing to others about Jesus

7) have a greater awareness of the presence of the Lord in one's whole life

8) give a higher value to relationships with Christ and other persons

9) show more reasonable respect for authority

10) live out stronger tendencies to be forgiving and personally forthright with other people

11) evidence greater avoidance of over-simplistic views (such as viewing complex social issues as more than mere power struggles)

12) reveal less tendency to be anxious about life and their faith

13) are less swayed by their peers

·         The research also proved that the more years a person attended a Lutheran school, the more significant the difference became.

    * Milo Brekke, How Different Are People Who Attended Lutheran Schools; based on data compiled by Youth Research Center