issue: Education
Manno for The 74: Survey Finds Teens Worldwide Are Lost in the Transition After High School
Teenagers around the world are adrift as they near high school graduation. They are deeply interested in future careers, but their expectations are outdated, and they have little awareness of their actual professional options.
That’s the message of a new report, The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation, by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The report surveys approximately 690,000 15- and 16-year-old students from more than 80 countries, including the United States. Here are five key insights from the report:
- Roughly 4 out of 10 students are unclear about their career expectations, double the number from about a decade ago.
- Almost half (49%) agree (35%) or strongly agree (14%) that school has done little to prepare them for adult life.
- There’s a gender gap in students’ aspirations to work in sectors like information technology and health care. For example, around 11% of boys report that they will work in information technology at age 30, compared with 1.5% of girls.
- Job preferences focus on a few, well-known professions, such as teaching, psychology and sports. For example, around half of girls and 44% of boys report that they expect to work in one of just 10 jobs, with little change in career preferences since 2000.
- The majority of young people don’t get connected to workforce professionals who can help them understand the opportunities available to them. Only 35% report attending a job fair, and just 45% visited a workplace.
Read more in The 74.
The Union Podcast: Live from NCSC in Orlando!
Manno for Forbes: Civic Education As We Look To Our Nation’s 250th Anniversary
More than seven out of 10 U.S. adults give a grade of C or worse to K-12 public schools’ efforts to prepare students “to be good citizens.” History and civics 8th-grade test scores are at an all-time low. On the other hand, there is strong support and narrowing political differences between Democrats and Republicans on the importance of civic education, especially students learning civics and history.
In 2026 we will celebrate America’s 250th anniversary commemorating the signing the Declaration of Independence. As we prepare for this event, we should acknowledge both the worrisome and good news and continue to advance efforts that increase students’ knowledge of civics and history.
Troubling News
There are worrisome signs that patriotism, civic knowledge, and civic education are declining. A Gallup poll in 2023 found that 39% of U.S. adults were extremely proud to be an American, compared to 55% in 2001 when the question was first asked. This was essentially unchanged from the 38% record low in 2022. When combining those extremely or very proud, the number dropped from a high of 90% in 2003 to 67% in 2023. There also is a divide on patriotism between younger and older Americans. While 50% of adults aged 55 and older said they are extremely proud to be American, 40% of those aged 35 to 54 and 18% of 18- to 34-year-olds said the same.
The Union Podcast Episode 4
National Service, AmeriCorps, and the Future of Education
Osborne for The 74: Red States’ School Vouchers Mark Biggest Shift in U.S. Education in a Century
Do Americans want an education system in which the quality of children’s schools depends largely on their family’s wealth?
Not likely. Yet in Republican-dominated states, that’s exactly what the future holds. This is arguably the most profound change in American education since the development of universal public education over a century ago.
Over the past five years, 14 states have passed laws creating universal vouchers, often known as Education Savings Accounts — public money families can use to pay private school tuition. All are Republican states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. Two more, Oklahoma and Idaho, have passed refundable tax credits available to all families.
Every family in those states is eligible, or will be within a few years, for somewhere between West Virginia’s $4,600 and Texas’s $10,500 a year per student. Counting programs limited to low-income students, more than half of all K-12 students in the U.S. now qualify for some form of voucher.
Read more in The 74.
Manno for Forbes: Are Micro-Credentials Democratizing K-12 Credentialing?
A quiet shift is underway in K-12 education that is democratizing the types of credentials awarded to students and educators. Increasingly, K-12 is using micro-credentials to verify and document what students and educators know and can do when assessed on particular learning outcomes.
The effect is potentially profound. Journalist Sara Weissman says that young people’s use of micro-credentials is creating “The micro-credential generation, a fast-growing number of traditionally college-age students [who] are bypassing degrees to pursue cheaper and faster alternative credentials.”
What follows examines the emerging use of micro-credentials in K-12 student learning and teacher professional development, the challenges involved in implementing this approach, and the lessons learned along the way.
The Union Podcast Episode 3
Kahlenberg in The Assembly: One Critic of Race-Based Admissions Says Colleges Can Still Improve Diversity
Richard Kahlenberg has been enthralled with the multiracial, working-class coalitions envisioned by Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin since he was an undergraduate student at Harvard University. Decades later, Kahlenberg says those ideals led him to an unexpected alliance with conservatives in their fight to end race-based affirmative action.
Kahlenberg, a policy scholar who is currently director of housing policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, was an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) in its lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ultimately, the Supreme Court two years ago struck down race-based affirmative action programs in most college admissions.
In his new book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges, Kahlenberg explains why he aligned himself with the group.
Kahlenberg in The New York Times: What Happens if ‘Harvard Is Not Harvard’?
“Trump has pulled off something I thought I’d never see, which is he made Harvard look sympathetic,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a Harvard critic who supports the idea of giving admissions preferences to students with lower family incomes. […]
Mr. Kahlenberg said his “big fear” was that Harvard might scale back on social mobility efforts and seek to admit more students whose families could pay full freight, nearly $87,000 a year for undergraduates, including room and board.
Read more in The New York Times.
The Union Podcast Episode 2
Weinstein Jr. for Forbes: More Colleges Freeze Hiring And Suspend Salary Increases
Colleges and universities continue to look for ways to cut spending because of the Trump Administration’s policies towards higher education.
One June 2nd, Johns Hopkins University announced a set of policies to prepare for a possible decline in revenue. They join a list of schools including Brown University, Duke University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington, and the University of California system, that have temporarily paused hiring and vow to hold off on capital spending.
Hopkins has already seen $850 million in grant cuts resulting from the culling of USAID and other program terminations, plus the school has a large number of international students (many who pay full tuition) who may be dissuaded from studying in the U.S. due to the Administration’s more restrictive visa policies.
Keep reading in Forbes.
Manno for Fusion Magazine: A Plan for Prudence
The words “common sense” are central in today’s political lexicon. President Trump’s Inaugural Address called for a “revolution of common sense.” Michael Baharaeen, columnist and chief political analyst for the center-left Liberal Patriot, asked, “Is a common sense faction of Democrats rising?”
Rival claims of common sense reminded me that my parents’ go-to maxim was “Use your common sense.” They directed it at me (and my siblings) when I was old enough to raise questions with them about doing something on my own. On the other hand, “That person doesn’t have any common sense” was the worst thing they could say about another person.
These maxims weren’t particular to my family. Growing up, I heard them repeated by adults to their children throughout our Italian American neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. For my part, I found the simplicity of the advice appealing, though I was not always sure how to apply it.
As is often the case with simple truisms, it’s taken me years to understand the complexity and insight behind such timeless maxims. Only recently did I realize that my parents’ guidance was grounded in the virtue of prudence, which I’d learned about during my Catholic school education. This motivated me to re-educate myself on the meaning of this essential and overlooked virtue.
In today’s fast-paced, often chaotic environment, the need for prudence—a virtue that combines foresight, wisdom, and discretion—has never been more critical. Properly understood, “use your common sense” might be a rallying cry for our time.
Keep reading in Fusion Magazine.
Kahlenberg on Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger: Has Affirmative Action FAILED?
Has affirmative action failed in America?? In this eye-opening conversation, Richard Kahlenberg—author of Class Matters and a longtime education and housing policy scholar—explains why race-based affirmative action has failed America’s working class and what can be done to fix it. A self-described “liberal maverick,” Kahlenberg dives into his controversial role in the Supreme Court case against Harvard, arguing that socioeconomic-based admissions would promote both racial equity and fairness without alienating the working-class voters Democrats are rapidly losing. From Harvard’s legacy advantages and billionaire endowments to MLK’s and RFK’s forgotten views on class over race, this episode challenges elite institutions, political orthodoxy, and the future of education in America.
Check out all of Richard’s books and appearances: https://www.richardkahlenberg.org/
Watch the full video.
Kahlenberg in CBS News: Colleges are slightly less diverse as admissions officers seek ways to adapt post-affirmative action
Richard Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, said that if schools were to consider socioeconomic status instead of race, they could still increase diversity on campus. Kahlenberg testified on behalf of Students for Fair Admissions in support of the ruling ending affirmative action.
With data obtained through the legal process, he and an economist ran dozens of admissions simulations and found that considering socioeconomic status and ending preferential admissions for legacy students could increase diversity at Harvard and the University of North Carolina while maintaining academic caliber.
“If there were some universities that did not see declines in racial diversity, as we know there were some, then it’s incumbent upon those institutions that saw larger drops to learn what happened,” Kahlenberg said.
He added that universities and colleges have argued that this method would be far more expensive, as it would increase the amount of financial aid the schools have to provide.
“It’s not that race-neutral alternatives are ineffective, it’s that they cost more money,” he said.