Planting the seed
- Jun 15, 2017
- 4 min read
All individuals have the right to earn a living in a fulfilling career and it is the role of parents, educators, and education policymakers to support our children's life dreams.
This is the first assumption underpinning all of my work and it is deceptively simple. On its face, it reflects the American Dream, or the belief that through hard work and perseverance American citizens have an equal opportunity to achieve prosperity. On a deeper level, however, it challenges deeply held notions about economic competition and individual success. For many parents, educators, and policymakers, embracing this assumption will require a paradigm shift as it requires us to rethink what it means for all Americans to succeed in life.
The 2016 election and its aftermath revealed a great divide between the minority factions in our society. The Democratic-voting residents of coastal cities were quick to point fingers, arguing that isolationism and bigotry won the election. The Americans in the middle states who voted Republican did so for a range of reasons, including bigotry and xenophobia, but many Americans voted for Trump because they had concerns about the economy and he appeared to know how to run a business and negotiate deals.
The American Manufacturing Industry has consistently reported that there are hundreds of thousands of unfilled manufacturing jobs in this country. Economists estimate that these jobs will continue to go unfilled because they are becoming increasingly technical and require more computer and on-the-job learning skills than in the past. These are the types of skills taught in career training programs in community colleges and technical schools, but many of the people who would benefit most from these programs are not encouraged to aspire to or prepare for college. As these jobs go unfilled in the United States, they are outsourced to other countries where workers have the skills we lack. Many argue that we are at risk of losing our competitive edge in the global marketplace because applicants don't have the postsecondary training to succeed.
The second assumption of my work is:
Nearly all jobs in the future will require some form of education after high school and all students must graduate from high school ready for postsecondary education. For some students, this will be career and technical education at a community college and others will require graduate school to achieve their dreams.
Improving students' aspirations is not a partisan issue. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have a long history of working together to improve educational outcomes for America's schoolchildren. Today's children are tomorrow's manufacturing workers, scientists, and builders and it is up to us adults to help them get there. We must encourage and support high aspirations in all students. The future of our nation depends on it. All of us, as voters and taxpayers, have a responsibility to all children that goes beyond a moral imperative. We cannot neglect the interconnected nature of our economy and our success as a nation depends on all of us. As President Reagan described in his speech, A Nation At Risk: "Of all the tools at hand, the public's support for education is the most powerful."
After the election, new distinctions began to be made among people. Mainstream views, such as a belief in human dignity and justice, a desire for public services, and loyalty to the Constitution, began to be cast as "liberal" or "leftist" in contrast to the extreme views of elected officials on the right. Clinton referred to Trump voters as "The Deplorables," a term heavily laden with privilege and contempt. Trump supporters began to refer to the other side as Social Justice Warriors or Snowflakes and the racist right began holding rallies and parades. A few months after the inauguration, three men in my city were stabbed defending two young women of color from a white supremacist who was enflamed by the political rhetoric and brandished a knife on the light rail train. As one of these brave men lay dying, he was reported to have said: "Tell everyone on this train I love them. ''
The only survivor of the attack gave this statement to the Portland news:
"We must stand hand-in-hand with one another and find a way to start ending the anger and the hatred and to not allow anger and hatred to flood our city streets with violence and with the destruction that can come with it."
We must stand together or we will fall together. It is time to challenge the myth of Manifest Destiny, the myth that some members of our society don't deserve to achieve their goals, while others can take all the spoils. The third assumption of my work is:
Systemic racism and classism exist and we must acknowledge and challenge the barriers in place for students who are low-income, from marginalized racial and ethnic groups, English language learners, and whose parents did not attend college. Correspondingly, we must acknowledge white privilege and work to dismantle it.
All students, regardless of background, deserve to have the opportunity to imagine and achieve their greatest aspirations. We can all be our brightest selves, no matter where we come from. Believing that about ourselves, as individuals and as a nation, is the first step in making sure that our children believe it as well.
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