c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I doubt that this year’s commencement speakers will venture too deeply into reality. Too depressing for a celebratory day.

No one will address the study that showed only 18 percent of high school freshmen enter college and finish their degrees in less than six years. Too invisible.

But let’s say we did want to see the world out there and imagine, say, 20 years from now, when members of the Class of 2007 will expect to be earning good salaries, owning cars and houses, and taking their turn at the American Dream.

Here are some numbers to know. In America, one-third of high school students drop out, nearly half of them because they were unprepared by earlier schooling. Their lifetime economic prospects are meager.

Of those who do advance to college, three out of four are unprepared for college-level work. Of those who do finish college, half are business majors who possess disposable skills for jobs that might not exist in 20 years. Technology entrepreneurs are desperate for young talent who can create and imagine, not another army of spreadsheet jocks.

Meanwhile, says one university official, “there are 300 million people in India with bachelor’s degrees or above.” And an expanding economic juggernaut in China. And Japanese industries that are continually out-thinking U.S. industry.

Meanwhile, income distribution is tilting heavily toward the super-wealthy, whose work in fields like hedge fund management, mergers and acquisitions, finance and law has minimal positive impact on industrial innovation, technology and product development, where creation of new jobs occurs.

More and more information technology is being channeled into entertainment. Watching “CSI” on a hand-held device is no substitute for inventing new medicines, new systems of transportation or new energy sources.

What do these realities suggest?

First, a continued squeeze on the middle class, income falling behind expenses, insecure employment, while assumed entitlements like home ownership, rewarding jobs, health insurance and new cars move beyond reach.

For the expanding ranks below middle class, we see severe economic deprivation of a systemic nature, including minimal access to health care, decent housing, quality education and adequate nutrition.

For the privileged few, we find further isolation from actual community, further retreat into glossy enclaves, and the moral swamp that comes from exploiting others.

Second, I see continued pressure to abandon America’s commitment to democracy and freedom. The economically desperate will be easy marks for demagogues offering someone to blame, such as immigrants. The privileged will pay dearly to keep their Gilded Age proceeding, even as their neighbors lose ground.

If graduates were open to reality, what could we say?

First, this is a tragedy with no villains. Just a lot of short-sighted behavior and not enough grit. We should abandon the politics of scapegoating.

Second, it comes down to values _ basic values like hard work, honesty, sacrifice and neighborliness. Debating sexual ethics or whether the American flag belongs in church matters a lot less than nurturing a nation whose values we _ and the world _ can respect.

Third, we need more teachers, engineers and inventors, not more consumers of entertainment or managers of other people’s money. Our only long-term hope is an educated, motivated and inventive work force.

Finally, I say to my colleagues in religion: We need to be educators, not moralizers. We need to be opening schools that teach significant skills, not phony biblical values. We need to be forming partnerships with public schools to cut the dropout rate and to expand the availability of challenging classes for the bright.

We need to be preaching about reality, not serving as theologians-in-captivity for politicians.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest in Durham, N.C. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE/PH END EHRICH

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