Tomorrow in Columbia, South Carolina, the Jack Kemp Foundation will receive a coterie of scholars, policy mavens, and politicos at its Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity. The event is hosted by House Speaker Paul Ryan and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott—two rising GOP stars, both notably focused on policy solutions to America’s inequality crisis—and holds great potential as a podium for presidential candidates to exchange ideas. In the midst of a conspicuously policy-light 2016 campaign (especially when it comes to the issue of K–12 schooling, where vowing to eradicate the Department of Education counts as some candidates’ most probing insight), it will be healthy for participants to lay out their opportunity agendas in an important early primary state.
The host organization is just as fitting as the venue. Its namesake, congressman and cabinet secretary (and quarterback!) Jack Kemp, was one of the most energetic policy entrepreneurs of the Reagan era. He was a self-styled “bleeding-heart conservative” who championed novel schemes to conquer poverty through tax and housing policy. His nomination as the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1996 was a credit to the party, and conservative voices are now trumpeting the “Kemp model” as an example for future Republican party leaders to emulate.
But he was also a strong proponent of using education as a lever to free the disadvantaged from the circumstances of their birth. It was Jack Kemp who famously elevated the cause of school choice to a civil rights struggle, and many of the sector’s most passionate reformers have adopted that mission as their own. That’s why the principal focus of tomorrow’s conference should be on education as the most effective springboard into the middle class.
There’s little doubt that education and opportunity are tightly joined in the twenty-first-century economy. Almost every week brings a new study demonstrating that highly skilled workers are rewarded with stronger pay and excellent working conditions, while Americans with few skills are struggling. Yet much of our public discourse ends there. We know that more young Americans need better education in order to succeed, especially young Americans growing up underprivileged. The question that policy audiences must ask—and our potential leaders must answer—is how we can deliver the knowledge and competencies necessary to navigate the pathways out of poverty.
Happily, Fordham has been hard at work formulating the policy prescriptions necessary to move the ball forward on education for upward mobility. These ideas provided the basis for our blockbuster 2014 conference on the topic, as well as a forthcoming volume of essays by our panel of experts. Many of the action items will stand out as familiar favorites: higher academic standards, small schools of choice (in the model of the Gates Foundation’s work in New York City), ability tracking to identify our most gifted and underserved students, and worthy early childhood education commencing long before kindergarten. The implementation of some or all of these concepts could change the trajectory of millions of lives and help bulldoze the obstacles keeping low-income students from pursuing college, establishing intergenerational wealth, and leading vastly more fulfilled lives.
But we also have to broaden our focus beyond the four-year college degree. Two-year technical degrees, and even one-year credentials, can also propel poor children to greater success, especially if they choose the right field. Expanding those options will require changes, because too many places have given up on vocational education. High-quality career and technical education needs to be a viable option for many more kids, beginning in high school. It shouldn’t be forced on anyone, but it has to exist as an option for those who want it. Put teenagers on a path to meaningful credentials. Give them experience in a real workplace. Offer them apprenticeships. Find them great mentors and role models. Show them what it means to work.
With the abundance of detailed proposals for broadening opportunity to all our fellow citizens—as well as the army of dedicated wonks propagating those ideas—Republican candidates will be faced with an embarrassment of riches in Columbia. And there’s no wrong way to help Americans out of the anguish of ignorance and want. Let’s just make sure, during the myriad panel discussions of prosperity and growth, that we don’t lose sight of the growth that needs to take place in a classroom before an adult can prosper in life.
