When schools, at all levels, reopened this week, it was back to normal. Or was it?

Hard to tell, because perhaps no other American institution is in greater turmoil these days, from right and left. So, what is, or would be, normal for schools? Or should be?

To begin, it’s no understatement to say public education is the key piece in America’s success. Without universal and free public education, along with widespread and attainable academic and technical schooling after high school, America wouldn’t have been the world’s economic and cultural powerhouse for more than a century.

So, why are schools under attack?

I find at least four reasons.

First, schools have moved past the idea of teaching “The Three Rs, readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic.” Parents have abdicated many of their duties, such as fixing the kids’ breakfast, overseeing their homework, teaching them about sexual and other relationships and supporting the teachers and schools when the kids are disciplined.

Schools are run by administrators. Never was there an administrator who didn’t see opportunity in expanding the mission of the agency. Kids come to school without having eaten breakfast? Get the school board to pay for breakfast for all pupils. Parents are skittish talking about sex or about honoring all people regardless of life situations? Set up courses in sex education and set up “civil rights teams” in the schools.

Holly Morris, a school director is the Spruce Mountain School District (Jay, Livermore Falls and Livermore) complained last spring that Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin was putting culture issues ahead of the basics. The Sun Journal had reported that Makin had told a legislative hearing that “social-emotional learning, gender and race and diversity, equity and inclusion will take priority over academic subjects such as math, reading and science.”

Makin is just plain wrong. Basic education must come first if America is to stay near the top.

Second, intellectual rigor in school is vanishing. In my time on the Mount Blue School Board, we dealt with an administration request to “weight” grades for the most difficult classes. The idea was to put our kids on a par with kids from higher-ranked schools when applying to college.

I preferred then and now that Mount Blue work to make itself a better high school, so when its grads apply to Bates, Kenyon, UMaine or the University of Maine at Farmington, the college admissions counselors will know that the applicant had had access to a good grounding and could be a good collegian. That makes more sense than ginning up a grade-inflating system to make Mount Blue look better.

Third, many fundamentalist religionists still chafe at the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1962 banning mandatory prayer in schools. In Engel v. Vitale, the court ruled that forcing students to pray amounted to the establishment of religion, which the First Amendment forbids. The ruling is so common-sensical that I have a hard time seeing how anyone can object to it.

As a deacon in a Protestant church, I’m on the side of religion. But I don’t want, say, a Southern Baptist or a Bahai writing prayers for my kids. And I’m pretty sure they don’t want me writing prayers for their kids. To require any given prayer tells kids, “You need to believe this.”

Here’s an ironic aside. In 1954, I was a freshman at McMinn County High School in Athens, Tennessee. Each autumn Friday we had a football pep rally. The principal led us in prayer — yes, he was a Southern Baptist — and then invited all the boys down to the foot of the stage so they could look up the skirts of the cheerleaders. That made me willing to endure his prayer.

Religious zealots are moving deeper into the realm of public education. The Supreme Court seems ready to aid and abet their efforts. In June, in the case of Carson v. Makin, the Court ruled that Maine could not withhold funding from schools that provide religious instruction.

Then, Arizona passed a law giving a voucher for $7,200 every year for every child whose parents want their kids in private, including religious, schools. Even parents who make millions a year will get the voucher.

This is directly out of an old right-wing playbook. It’s easier to starve a program to death than to simply kill it. So, money that might help make Arizona’s schools better for all is used to make schools worse by taking many students out of the public schools. Eventually, if the voucher people get their way, public schools will starve to death.

Arizona schools may starve fast. World Population Review ranks Arizona 41st in education, and U.S. News & World Report ranks it 48th. World Population has Maine seventh, U.S. News has us 28th.

Finally, if you layer all this pressure over the learning losses during the pandemic emergency (more than a year’s worth in some subjects), you have a deep and enduring conundrum.

I hold great hope for our young people. I pray that we older folks won’t betray them, yet again, as have other institutions, such as the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church, among others.

Bob Neal often feels he has spent his life in school. Nine years on the Mount Blue School Board, 10 years teaching colleges. His sons long ago finished school, but he still follows schools closely. Neal can be reached at bobneal@myfairpoint.net.

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