The program of this type that has had the most success so far is called career academies, in which students organize into small learning communities to participate in academic and technical education for three or four years during high school. Perhaps the most important aspect of the program is the opportunity students have to gain several years of experience with local employers who provide career-specific learning experiences. An eight-year follow-up of young adults who had participated in career academies showed limited effects on young women but major effects on young men. Young men who had been in the program were about 33% more likely to be married, were about 30% more likely to live with their partners and their children, and earned about $30,000 more over the eight years than the men in the randomized control groups. Expanding the reach of career academies, especially in high-poverty areas, would be a wise investment.
He lists other ideas, including extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to single parents.
Is what we are doing working? Are not all the other graphs in that essay exactly some people were worried about? Or is the point of all solutions to make their ostensible problems worse?
For education in particular, comparing what we actually do to what I could rattle off in 10 minutes, I’m nearly convinced the role of education is to keep people out of work and minimize their bargaining power and at best is simply geared towards keeping warehousing costs low. I’m not quite yet convinced the aggregate misery is an explicit objective, but I was just imagining how one must try a job for 5 years or so just to figure it isn’t for them. That is after 6 months to match up with a job. This is after two decades of education. By then one is almost burnt out.