Page 39 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 39
m. a. peters ■ conflicting narratives of the american dream
We have more than 2 million children enrolled in preschool programs,
100,000 public schools, 49 million K-12 students, more than 3 million
teachers, and 15,000 school districts – all of it largely administered and
funded by local governments. I am convinced that the US education sys-
tem now has an unprecedented opportunity to get dramatically better.
Nothing – nothing – is more important in the long-run to American
prosperity than boosting the skills and attainment of the nation’s stu-
dents. In the United States, we feel an economic and moral imperative to
challenge the status quo. Closing the achievement gap and closing the
opportunity gap is the civil rights issue of our generation. One quarter
– 25 percent – of US high school students drop out or fail to graduate
on time. Almost 1 million students leave our schools for the streets each
year. That is economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable.
If “the economic future of the United States rests on its ability to strength-
en our education system,” then in the current situation. with state-led
budget cuts and the general recession, the American Dream is severely at
risk. The authors of “The Global Auction” (Brown, Lauder and Ashton,
2011) suggest that in a more integrated and networked world, the mar-
ket value of American workers is no longer a national matter, but rath-
er is part of a global auction for jobs. They challenge the conventional
wisdom that more education will lead to greater individual and national
prosperity, which has been a cornerstone of developed economies – argu-
ing that globalization has led to a new, global, high-skill, low-wage work-
force. Their work not only questions the easy adoption of education as hu-
man capital development, but calls for a radical questioning of education
as the principal mechanism for the achievement of the American Dream.
Of course, the goal of education is not simply about a form of eco-
nomic instrumentalism that helps the United States “win the future,” to
quote from Obama’s education rhetoric. Now, more than any time in the
past, and especially at this very moment of capitalist crisis in the West, the
old truisms about education as the central part of the “knowledge econ-
omy” and as the ticket to economic health no longer wash: even gradu-
ates can’t get jobs. Youth unemployment in the Eurozone and the Unit-
ed States is spiraling upward, and the relationship between education and
jobs is no longer a comfortable mantra of “education equals jobs.” One
might argue that what is urgently needed is a critical democratic educa-
tion that leads to the development of cosmopolitan citizens able to scruti-
nize and monitor the workings of capital to help protect the public sector
against the ravages of the monopolization of knowledge and the privati-
zation of education.
37
We have more than 2 million children enrolled in preschool programs,
100,000 public schools, 49 million K-12 students, more than 3 million
teachers, and 15,000 school districts – all of it largely administered and
funded by local governments. I am convinced that the US education sys-
tem now has an unprecedented opportunity to get dramatically better.
Nothing – nothing – is more important in the long-run to American
prosperity than boosting the skills and attainment of the nation’s stu-
dents. In the United States, we feel an economic and moral imperative to
challenge the status quo. Closing the achievement gap and closing the
opportunity gap is the civil rights issue of our generation. One quarter
– 25 percent – of US high school students drop out or fail to graduate
on time. Almost 1 million students leave our schools for the streets each
year. That is economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable.
If “the economic future of the United States rests on its ability to strength-
en our education system,” then in the current situation. with state-led
budget cuts and the general recession, the American Dream is severely at
risk. The authors of “The Global Auction” (Brown, Lauder and Ashton,
2011) suggest that in a more integrated and networked world, the mar-
ket value of American workers is no longer a national matter, but rath-
er is part of a global auction for jobs. They challenge the conventional
wisdom that more education will lead to greater individual and national
prosperity, which has been a cornerstone of developed economies – argu-
ing that globalization has led to a new, global, high-skill, low-wage work-
force. Their work not only questions the easy adoption of education as hu-
man capital development, but calls for a radical questioning of education
as the principal mechanism for the achievement of the American Dream.
Of course, the goal of education is not simply about a form of eco-
nomic instrumentalism that helps the United States “win the future,” to
quote from Obama’s education rhetoric. Now, more than any time in the
past, and especially at this very moment of capitalist crisis in the West, the
old truisms about education as the central part of the “knowledge econ-
omy” and as the ticket to economic health no longer wash: even gradu-
ates can’t get jobs. Youth unemployment in the Eurozone and the Unit-
ed States is spiraling upward, and the relationship between education and
jobs is no longer a comfortable mantra of “education equals jobs.” One
might argue that what is urgently needed is a critical democratic educa-
tion that leads to the development of cosmopolitan citizens able to scruti-
nize and monitor the workings of capital to help protect the public sector
against the ravages of the monopolization of knowledge and the privati-
zation of education.
37
