A sermon by the Rev. Frank Baldwin

THE SCHOOLS CAN’T DO IT ALL, Luke 10:25-37

I.          Of all the accomplishments of the American spirit over the last three and a half centuries,

one of the greatest was also one of the earliest.  Within fifteen years of setting foot at Plymouth Rock, the New England Puritans had established in Boston the first public school in the New World.  A year later they opened a college, which they named after the clergyman who donated the books, John Harvard.  By 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony had enacted history’s first effective public education law.  Called “Ye Ould Deluder Satan” law, it sought to insure “…that learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers in the church and in the commonwealth.”  By the time of the Revolution there were dozens of American colleges and hundreds of public schools, seminaries and academies. 

Necessity was one reason for the rapid rise of public education in the colonies.  America lacked the venerable institutions that in the Old World had provided the learning and training deemed appropriate for the different classes of society.  Here there were no royal courts or medieval universities, no great cathedrals, guilds or monasteries; there were no feudal agricultural practices, no rigid social traditions to define the duties of servants and masters; there was no formal military command structure, no established apprentice system for workers, no government bureaucracy.  Lacking such traditional institutions for disseminating knowledge and skill, Americans early assigned to schools all the manifold tasks of education.

Democracy itself was the other reason why public education flourished here.  The Old World monarchies had depended upon an acquiescent and largely uneducated citizenry, willing to be ruled by a relatively informed aristocracy and civil service.  But under democracy, the people had to know enough to rule themselves.  And as democracy advanced – from the Congregational churches, to the town meetings, to the colonial statehouses and finally to that galvanizing expression of national will and purpose:  the Declaration of Independence – the conviction took hold that democracy required an educated populace.  Thus, the American idea of broadly relying on schools to replace a network of older established institutions as well as guarantee basic freedom and social values became widely accepted, and continues to be so to this day.

II.        A lot of people still want the schools to do it all.  We want the schools to teach everything:  all the traditional subjects plus English as a second language, vocational skills, citizenship and community service, cultural diversity and ethical boundaries, relational and domestic sciences, health and sex education, sports, music and the arts, how to stay away from drugs and gangs, balance a checkbook, fill out a job application and program a computer.  Perhaps there was once a time when a working acquaintance with the “3 Rs” could pass for an education, but not today.  And with the information explosion of the last fifty years has come a corresponding explosion of expectations:  we hold the schools responsible for teaching young people everything they need to know to survive in an increasingly complex world.

In addition, we have increasingly expected the schools to solve problems that society as a whole is unable or unwilling to solve.  For example, Americans long assumed that our obvious economic and political superiority gave us an insurmountable advantage in international relations.  Until 1957, that is, when the first Soviet sputnik went into orbit and it suddenly became a matter of national pride – if not of vital self defense – to beat the Russians to the moon.   The schools were handed the responsibility for turning out – overnight and at whatever cost to the time-tested, balanced liberal arts curriculum – a new generation of scientists and mathematicians capable of putting us back on top and keeping us there.   Schools thereafter became more-or-less permanently accountable for solving a major foreign policy dilemma, the true scope of which obviously goes far beyond education. 

Or take the issue of civil rights.  The schools certainly didn’t invent the awkward realities of racial and gender inequality that have persisted in our country, but when the courts finally got around to dealing with the matter, it was the schools that were assigned the primary responsibility for redressing wrongs and reordering society.  School systems have struggled for half a century now with these injustices, using the meager and unsatisfactory resources available:  magnet schools, cross-town busing, quota hiring, bilingual classrooms, Title IX sports, standardized tests, government mandates.  No one is happy with the results, but at least now we have the schools to blame.  What we seem to have accomplished is really just the shifting to the schools of moral and constitutional responsibilities which in truth belong to all citizens. 

Moreover, a die-hard coalition of politicians and preachers continues to thrust on the schools a whole vast new responsibility, namely, that of teaching children and young people what to believe and how to pray.  They want teachers and administrators to model the fundamentals of religious observance.  They want Genesis taught alongside of evolution in science classes.  They want the schools to reframe national history and civic morality in ways that make us seem more like the indelibly Christian nation of their imagination.  How this drumbeat of religious exclusivism jibes with either the Bill of Rights or the actual widening pluralism of American religion is anybody’s guess.  But an equally troubling question is why we would want to toss to the already-overloaded schools such profound responsibilities so far removed from the core tasks and capabilities of public education?

If we think children should be taught to pray, where are the congregations?  Where are the parents and grandparents?  Why isn’t the rest of society queuing up here to accept responsibility if it’s so important for future citizens to understand their religious and moral heritage?  Isn’t it a little hypocritical to be demanding that the schools not only do their increasingly difficult job of passing along essential information and democratic values but now also promulgate a body of religious belief and practice that our country as a whole is not ready to impose on itself?

In short, the tendency today is to require that the schools function as a surrogate conscience for society, asking them to operate in an educational environment wrought with distractions, interruptions, uncertain objectives, contradictory demands, crowded classrooms and crumbling campuses, budgetary limitations, political intrusions, unexpected consequences of previous policies, non-educational mandates and sometimes actual physical dangers; then severely faulting them when they fail to do the job.  Henry Steele Commager, the distinguished American historian, once labeled these the characteristics of a “lazy” society unprepared to face up to or resolve its own problems.  “The public,” Dr. Commager noted, gets the kind of schools it deserves “and is willing to pay for.”   That is to say, the schools can’t do it all!

The paradox of our situation is that at the same time we have delivered to the schools this hopelessly broad, unfocused, under-supported and unwieldy constellation of academic and societal obligations, most people in our country continue to believe in education and respect educators.  There is remains something deeply and uniquely “American” about public schools, and even the severest critics of the status quo acknowledge that for the sake of our future the historic educational mission of this nation must be revived and renewed.

III.       In the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus, a teacher in his own right, is asked for a philosophical or moral interpretation of “eternal life.”  And as his answer gradually emerges in the story that follows, it becomes apparent that the key to life eternal is not an abstract belief in some unworldly heaven-to-come, but rather a quality of life here on earth that forms around an attitude of respect and compassion for one’s neighbor, whoever he or she may be.  As far as Jesus is concerned, eternal life is concrete and relational, revealing itself most clearly when – albeit at some inconvenience to ourselves – we stand up and take responsibility for the welfare of another, or for the good of the whole.

Although we will have different roles to play and personal obligations to fulfill, the basic responsibilities of society are shared by all of us together and by each of us in particular ways.  There can be no “passing by on the other side” in true community:  the spirit of life eternal asks us to share one another’s burdens just as we share one another’s joys.  And so, if the schools in our country can’t do it all, then perhaps some part of the solution belongs to each of us. 

In a town like this one, of course, the opportunity always exists to undergird and enhance the work of our excellent schools by supporting bond measures and contributing to local educational foundations.  But more than our monetary support might be required.  It’s time to get the politicians and the preachers out of the schools, and get the parents and grandparents back it.  It would be a really good thing if each of us knew at least one active school teacher well enough to truly understand and sympathize with the daunting challenges that he or she faces in the classroom today.  And whether or not we have a child of our own in school at present, it would surely be revealing – and probably rewarding – for each of us to actually be present at a school campus on a regular basis.  There are sports activities, musical and dramatic productions, volunteer positions, fund raising events, public meetings, community classes and “back to school” nights that could make this possible for any of us.  Or what about “adopting” with our love and respect, our prayers and our creative support a school, or a teacher, or an administrator, or a student in some community less educationally favored than our own? 

This I know:  our beleaguered schools can’t do it all alone, any more than could that hapless fellow in the parable who fell among thieves and was left beat up and bloody by the side of the Jericho Road.  And it might just be up to you and me to find a few new Good Samaritans!