Why School Ministries, Inc. Is Here Today
by Charles Stetson, Jr.
 

Comments delivered on September 9, 2003
Symposium on Hardwired to Connect? New Policies for Children at Risk

Why did we at School Ministries, a small, not well known, faith based organization commit to support this project?

We a wanted to discover what science could tell us about the crisis in childhood today, a crisis we see lived out every day in public schools we serve.

Religion in our culture is the elephant in the room that won't go away.  90 percent of Americans are religious and religion continues to exercise deep influence over culture, politics, art, literature, family life, and world affairs.  Yet in public, especially in public schools and non-faith-based institutions, a veil of silence is for the most part drawn around this important area of life. For many kids, the veil of silence about religion as a topic  becomes transformed into a veil of ignorance that leaves to many alone, untutored, and unsupported. Adults who are concerned about the crisis in child well-being cannot ignore the very real questions, aspirations and need for inspirations in the hearts of every child, and most especially children in our most troubled communities. Questions that youth pose to us: What kind of life can I expect? How can I deal with difficult situations? Is there reason for hope? Is a good life possible for me?

The more we know, scientifically, psychologically, sociologically, about the human person, the more we know that these questions are not going to go away.  Every child, every adult, every society needs to face these questions and discover how to help our children face these questions.

Despite the tremendous and unprecedented prosperity of the United States or maybe in fact because of it, the United States, according to a  report by the U.S. Surgeon General issued after the Columbine School murders stated that the United States has become the most violent country of the top 25 industrial countries in the world. Indeed, we also have the highest per capita prison population in the world. These are indicators that we have a deep and serious problem.

The Hardwired Report cites some disturbing statistics early on in the report including:

• Scholars at the National Research Council in 2002 estimated that at least one of every four adolescents in the U.S. is currently at serious risk of not achieving productive adulthood.
• According to another recent study, about 21 percent of U.S. children ages nine to 17 have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder associated with at least minimum impairment.
• According to another study, by the 1980's U.S. children as a group were reporting more anxiety than did children who were psychiatric patients in the 1950's
• Homicide death rates among U.S. youth rose by more than 130% since the 1950s. Suicide rates rose by nearly 140 percent.

Equally disturbing is a survey of 12,000 high school students, the Josephson Institute of Ethics conducts every two years. They found that:

• students admitting cheating on an exam at least once in the past year jumped from 61% in 1992 to 74% in 2002.
• The number of students who stole something from a store within the past 12 months rose from 31% to 38%
• The percentage of students in the last ten years who admit lying to their teacher increased from 69% to 83% while those who admit lying to their parents increased  from 83% to 93%.
• Students that admit lying to get a good job went up from 28% to 37% in the last two years.

As Michael Josephson, the President of the Institute says, ``The scary thing is that so many kids are entering the workforce to become corporate executives, politicians, airplane mechanics and nuclear inspectors with the dispositions and skills of cheaters and thieves."

Every American has a stake in this problem. Businesses in particular are going to need to deal with this issue. This group of public school students will in 25 years be the leaders in business and government. They will be running the companies that could become the next Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth unless we do something about it. They will also be the workers that will affect our lives. Let me put it this way. Do you want to fly on an airplane where the chief mechanic signing off on the maintenance is a cheater, liar and stealer? Does this bring the issue home?

Each person in this country has a vested stake in this report. How could we at School Ministries not invest the money we did in this project?

ii
School Ministries therefore welcomes an independent academic study of what recent science on the brain has to say about development of youth. We applaud the conclusion that ``for what may be the first time, a diverse group of scientists and other experts on children's health is publicly recommending that our society pay considerably more attention to young people's moral, spiritual and religious needs."

Plank 9 of the Ten Main Planks, says ``Religion and spirituality significantly influence well-being".  School Ministries and I have worked on other projects with Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania, a member of this Commission, and his late colleague David Larson. We have seen first hand how as this report indicates ``Religious practice correlates to higher levels of reported personal happiness, higher level of hope and optimism and a stronger sense that one's life has purpose and meaning."

We saw this in studies that David Larson and Byron Johnson did with prisoners that were getting out. They did a study some years ago which I was involved in providing funds to update where prisoners that did voluntary Bible Study once a month for ten months before getting out were 4 times less likely to go back to prison than those that didn't. If they went twice a month, in the study they didn't come back. While no work was done on what prisoners were learning in the course, it is clear that just showing up worked. Interestingly enough, if a prisoner starting the program did not complete the course, then the results were as if the prisoner had not even taken the course or worse. Religion is a very positive and prophylactic against bad behavior.


Policy Implications

Policy implications are significant. In the prison situation I just cited, there are 2 million prisoners in the United States. 600,000 prisoners are released each year of which approximately 60% go back to prison within two years. If this program could achieve a 15% rate on half of the prisoners being released, then the annual savings. At $50,000 cost per prisoner that would be a savings of $6.7 billion annual for one year of results. Imagine if this continued for 10 years, 20 years at these rates. Here is a program that is legal, doesn't cost the taxpayer any money, in fact look at the savings. Why would we not want to encourage such a voluntary program?

We believe the situation is the same for public school students. The California public schools, once the model for the world, are in real trouble. In a report in the Oakland Tribune a year ago, there were over  32,000 reported crimes against persons statewide in the public school system, up 16 percent from the year before. There were over 26,000 reported property crimes up 1 percent and over 25,000 reported drug and alcohol offenses, up 7 percent. This was despite a three year $100 million statewide effort since 1999 to curb violence and other criminal activity on the public school campus. In Oakland schools, there were 590 fights, 59 assault with deadly weapons and 45 sex offenses according to the State Department of Education's annual Safe Schools Assessment Report.

Character Education has been a hot topic in public schools. However, public schools have been scrupulous to make sure that religion is kept out of any character education. Guess what! According to James Hunter, the Head of the Sociology Department at the University of Virginia, there have been over an estimated 10,000 studies on character education. None of these studies show any effectiveness despite millions of dollars and lots of time spent on this area. Professor Hunter does indicate that when religion is put into the mix, though, results start to change. Why haven't we included religion in character education when it works? This would be only common sense.

Our Approach at School Ministries

In addition to developing programs, School Ministries has been focused on research for two reasons: one it gives us the ability to develop metric to see how well we are doing; two, it provides independent research for teachers, principals and parents to show effectiveness.

School Ministries is focused on public school students. As this Hardwired Report points out 96 percent of U.S. Teenagers say that they believe in God. More than 40 percent report that they pray frequently. About 36 percent are members of a church or religious youth group. This data points out that public school students are hungry for faith.

School Ministries is also working with congregations to get them involved intergenerationally. One of our affiliated programs serves 3,200 students during the public school day with 1,100 adults of which 25% are men. There are 3 times the number of houses of worship in the United States than there are public schools. If we could get 1/3 of the houses of worship involved, we could dramatically improve public education.  How can we do this in public schools constitutionally? By offering parents and students the option of religious literacy programs off-premises but during the school day. Independent research confirm that released-time religious study programs help students improve both academically and behaviorally, to grow in reading skills and personal character, improving academic performance. Why would we not want to encourage a program that improves academic performance?

We have observed independently in Released Time Religious Education around the country is very much in line with what this report confirms.

1. Religious involvement appears to increase social connectedness
2. Positive religious coping mechanisms may help children and others deal with stressful situations and orient them toward specific goals.
3. Religious institutions are more likely than many others to offer a shared vision of the good life, communal support for good behavior, a long term rather than a short term outlook and thick networks of relationships that are multi-generational rather than unigenerational.
4. Religious commitment on the part of parents appears to be associated with significantly higher investments in parenting and better parenting environments.
5. Personal devotion among adolescents is associated with reduced risk taking behavior and is associated with more effectively resolving feelings of loneliness.

What we are giving students is hope. In my Faith tradition, we are told to ``always be prepared to defend the hope that is within you." 1 Peter 3.15. Today,  popular culture, sells the world of ``no hope, celebrating aggression and even suicide.

Two years ago, we began to collect information from teachers and students about released-time education programs. We have booklets ``Tales of Grace in A Time of Violence" available.  A year ago, we hired the National Council on Crime and Delinquency to study public school students in Oakland in the 4th and 5th grade and look at the State administered tests that they are taking. What we found, again not to our surprise, was that the students (almost all minorities) in Released Time Religious Education, had better performance than students that did not participate in the program. We have copies here today of that report.


Conclusion

The Wall Street Journal, speaking of research on the effectiveness of  another faith-based program, argued, ``To put it another way, critics of the faith based approach may claim that there only issue is with religion. But if these results are any clue, the argument against such programs requires turning a blind eye to science."

The issues these distinguished scientists help us grapple with in this Hardwired to Connect report are urgent, and long overdue.  For me and I hope for all of us who work with children,  it is a call to action, to find new ways—respectful of each other rights, and mindful of diverse religious traditions-- to address the spiritual needs of children, in families, in schools, and in communities.