The latest installment of the Walton Family Foundation-Gallup Voices of Gen Z study, released in late August, offers school and district leaders a useful gut check. Surveying 1,758 Gen Z students still enrolled in middle or high school, the report finds what many educators already sense.
Young people are generally optimistic about their futures, but far less confident they are prepared for it. The gap between hope and readiness isn’t evenly distributed. Closing it may depend less on sweeping reform than on a handful of practices already within reach of most schools.