TWO ROADS DIVERGING: ECONOMIC INCLUSION
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By Robert McLaughlin and Susan D. Ballard
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY
As long ago as 1990, when Mark Tucker and the National Center on Education and the Economy published their landmark report, America’s C h o i c e : High Skills or Low Wages!, we were warned. American policy makers needed to undertake a sustained initiative to foster a high-skill, high-wage economy. Without concerted, proactive efforts at the national, state and local levels, the authors made clear that ours would become a second- or third-rate economy, where most job opportunities would be of the low-skill, low-wage variety. We should know by now that America has made a decision, by default, to accept prolonged movement toward a low-skill, low-wage economy in which income inequality has grown, wealth has become increasingly concentrated, the middle class is being steadily eviscerated, and the political polarization that comes from intensifying income inequality has become the new normal.
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If we are not chastened by our failure as a society to make better choices, we should be. This is how empires die.
IN HIS POEM, HARLEM, LANGSTON HUGHES WROTE: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
Accessibility, Compliance & Equity in Education
