Tom's refrain of "What can you do?" was echoed by his classmates, almost all of whom graduated happily enough but with discouraged feelings about their own ability to contribute to society. Most still harbored some ethnic prejudice and cultivated indifference. Despite the well-intentioned efforts of their school, parents, and community, the prejudiced and premoral assumptions of these students went essentially unchallenged, let alone enlightened, throughout their educations.
Pessimism and discouragement among young people have clearly worsened during the 1980a and 1990s. There is less trust that adults have answers. The decade following a national commission's 1993 A Nation at Risk and the corresponding shelf-load of books on school reform 1 has produced little change in most schools, while ever greater numbers of working mothers and lonely single parents depend more on schools to help rear their children. They want reform to focus more on care than on competition, agreeing with Betty Sichel that
The extent to which bonds of caring, relationship and support have been loosened, even at home since divorce became commonplace, mean schools must take over. The habits of the heart of even the leading segment of society are heartless habits that concentrate on personal success, material fulfillment, and newer forms of individualism. 2
And indeed, America has lost its sense of direction, "tis all in pieces, all coherence gone," 3 if we can accept that nearly half our children are battered by divorce, poverty, or even homelessness; many affluent ones are buying drugs; poor children in cities are selling drugs, carrying guns, and being shot; the average age of juvenile murderers his under 16; one-fourth of young black men are locked up or have criminal records; and nearly 60 percent of black and Hispanic students leave school in a semi-literate state before the tenth grade. The schools did not cause the material poverty situation, but correcting moral and