In “Making It in America,” Adam Davidson explores the problems of American manufacturing, using two young people as his vehicle. Maddie has no education beyond high school and no specialized skills. Luke has a good math background, three years of technical school, and the skills necessary run the most sophisticated machines. Maddie is a production line worker. Luke is a skilled tradesman. Luke has a bright future. Maddie can expect only more of the same or less.
Those of us who teach have seen lots of Maddies and Lukes pass through our rooms. Sometimes we can make shrewd guesses who will be which. Sometimes it is just a matter of “Time and Chance happen to all.” All told, Davidson’s picture of two young workers in today’s manufacturing economy rings true.
Then, near the end of the article, Davidson takes what seems to be the obligatory swipe at public schools: “a broken educational system.” It is true that some schools do a much better job of preparing their students for life beyond high school, but why that is, and its implications for America are another topic for another day, because Davidson does not make the case that the educational system is broken beyond “common knowledge.” Nor does he indicate that either of these young people are victims of “a broken educational system.” It seems to have served Luke quite well, and Maddie’s problems are not the result of anything the schools did or did not do, but of an ill-timed pregnancy. Luke’s family seems to have had the resources to keep him afloat while he went to school, whereas Maddie’s did not. Maddie was an honor roll student. She had seemed college-bound, and surely could have met entry requirements of any reasonably likely school, but having the grades and having the money are two different things. I taught mostly seniors, poised to jump off into the Wild Blue, and as I talk to these students of the recent past, this fact of life is borne home to me again and again.
“Those with the right ability and circumstances will, most likely, make the right adjustments, get the right skills, and eventually thrive. But I fear that those who are challenged now will only fall further behind.” (Italics mine) Those pesky circumstances! In this regard, our system is indeed broken.
Teen pregnancy, drug use, racial discrimination, and all the other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that our young people are heir to? We can only try to remediate these, to mitigate their impacts on what our students are able to bring to our door. That we must do, but we cannot solve them. Perhaps our Policy Makers can. Perhaps our Politicians need to get serious about taking on these challenges. Whether they will depends, ultimately, on America’s attitudes toward the role of education in our culture, relative to our values concerning our social, economic and political structures.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/8844/3/