The Russians did not interfere with the Germans’ operation of the schools. The edict of the tsar of 1813 made no reference to schools and initially the state did not concern itself with the school system of the immigrants. In the first years after settlement there was school education, in Krasna, as well. It took place at first in a farmer’s house, later in the house of prayer. Colonist schools were church schools. The pastor supervised the schools. ¹⁾ There was no other school administration. Initially school was meant to enable the students to gain knowledge of the catechism and the Bible, as well as rudimentary knowledge of reading, writing and math. All schooling was performed in German.
The community had to build and maintain the schools with their own funding; there was no state assistance. The communities also had to pay the teacher’s salary ²⁾ and they often tried to save money by hiring lesser-qualified, cheaper educators.

The teacher’s salary was reviewed annually and established new for each new teacher hired. It was certainly not a big lure. Mutschal ³⁾ lists teachers' salaries for Tarutino for circa 1835-1840 at 64 rubles and 60 kopecks banco in cash, 18 tschetwert of grain, 30 kopecks per child, free quarters and free heating materials. We have the records from Krasna for 1863 and 1864. ⁴⁾ For 1863 on the salary was 75 rubles, 1864, 90 rubles, the rest is close to the figures mentioned for Tarutino above. Teachers were among the first settlers to arrive. It is not known, whether any of them taught in Krasna. It was probably the same in Krasna as in the other communities. The school administrator was elected from among the colonists. Candidates were the farmers and craftsmen capable of reading and writing better than most farmers. All a teacher needed was a loud voice and a strong hand.

The lack of pedagogical training and leadership ability of the teachers caused stagnation in educational quality.

• In the beginning, the older teachers instructed the younger ones.
• Educated teachers were hard to come by, since the colonies had no teachers’ seminaries.
• The few well-educated teachers had no teaching implements other than the Bible and the hymnal.
• A growing childrens’ population with a lack of teachers simultaneously, caused large student numbers per class.
• Krasna had an additional handicap, since there were no pastors available for school administration, since they were Polish nationals at the beginning and not able to speak German.
  See 5.1, Church and Religion

Aside from regular school tasks, the teachers had to perform other community tasks. Teachers were often also the church custodians. If they were able to do so, they were also required to play the organ and as a rule, they performed the tasks of community secretary, as well.

The colonists showed little interest in solid school education. Children did not attend school well. They mostly came to school in the winter months (October-March). In the summer, they worked in the fields. The Evangelical superintendent Feßler described the situation of the village school in the colonies in 1920 in these words:
Usually, the colonist looks at the school teacher as a community burden and shows no interest in the education of the children. Hhe would rather work them and have them injure themselves in heavy farm work. In the village a farm helper or livestock herder makes a better salary than the schoolmaster. It stands to reason that Krasna was no exception.

On the other hand, there were efforts to better the situation. In 1844, the Werner School ⁵⁾ was founded in Sarata; it was a teachers’ seminary. At the end of the fourties of the 19th century, graduate teachers from this school already taught in the colonies. This school was the first German teachers’ seminary in the Tsarist Empire.

Under state councilman Hahn, the Welfare Committee paid attention to the school. In 1841 a school regulation was mandated which was supposed to eliminate poor school attendance: ⁶⁾

• Children of both sexes are required to attend school from age 7 on. ⁷⁾
• School attendance is mandatory from October until the end of March and Sunday school attendance on Sunday afternoon is also mandated.
• Non-compliance will lead to fines for the parents.

School attendance remained poor and the established fines did not change this. Pastor Behning wrote in the Odessa Zeitung (newspaper) on February 9, 1866: If the Good Lord would not cover all the threshing areas with snow and freeze up the plows, we would never see children in school. Even in the winter months attendance is only fair and the first sunshine in the spring makes them disappear again. The school teacher pleads, the pastor admonishes and the mayor looks like he would be about to punish people and the chief teacher sends out official letters, signed and sealed with the seal of the crown, but nothing changes.

The Welfare Committee was also upset with the schools. For instance, their president Westmacher (time in office 1853-1856) expresses his disgust about the affairs of the church schools, writing that in spite of being in existence for fifty years, they were still on a low level of performance. The chronicle of Alt-Arzis reports that the school there had 168 students in 1855 and only one teacher. The author starts with It is easy to figure out the consequences.. It was probably the same in Krasna.

The main subjects taught in the colonist schools until the 1860's were Religion, Reading and Arithmetic. In the middle of the 1860's, Russian was introduced as a subject in the German schools, dictated by the Welfare Committee. ⁸⁾

Even though the attendance was irregular, Bessarabian colonists received at least an elementary education.