An Education and Training Agenda for Working-Class Families
An Education and Training Agenda for Working-Class Families
More responsive schools and better career pathways for their kids.
Looking back on the past 40 years, many working-class Americans are justifiably glum about their economic position in the country.
According to opinion research conducted with working-class Americans (defined as those without a college degree) over the past year for the Progressive Policy Institute’s Project on Center Left Renewal, two out of three believe the working class is worse off today than it was four decades ago while only one in five believe the working class is better off. Despite overall displeasure, working-class Americans do retain hope for the future and look specifically to improved educational opportunities as a possible pathway to economic mobility for their children and themselves.
However, this research finds working-class voters divided on which political party will actually advance their educational and economic interests.
Asked which party they trust more “to put the interests of working-class people first,” 38 percent said Democrats and 37 percent said Republicans. Likewise, when asked which party would be best at “creating economic opportunities for working Americans,” 38 percent said Republicans and 33 percent said Democrats with nearly one in five saying neither party. More telling, less than half of working-class voters believe the federal government is responsive to their needs compared to seven in ten who believe the government is responsive to the needs of the college-educated.
Any politician running for office in 2024 must therefore persuade working-class voters that their interests are understood—and will be attended to—if they want to get elected.
In other words, it’s time for a radically pragmatic working-class agenda.
What might this look like in terms of education and job policies? Two themes emerge from this research that should be part of a practical working-class agenda.
First, working-class voters support public schools but want them to better serve their economic needs and family choices. Asked which of three options about education comes closest to their views, six in ten working-class Americans voters say “tax dollars should go to funding high quality public schools, while parents should have to pay for private and religious schools if they choose to enroll their child in one” versus around one third who support letting parents use “tax dollars to put their kids in private or religious schools.” A scant 6 percent like the idea that “local school boards, not parents, should decide where children go to school and where teachers teach.”
Moreover, a majority of working-class voters believe that public schools do not fully serve their interests or needs. When asked what groups public schools serve most today, six in ten say “political activists” and “teachers’ unions” compared to four in ten who say “students” and “parents.”
Second, working-class voters want more practical education and training pathways to good jobs, rather than the traditional “school to college to job” route. Given three choices for proposals that would best enable working-class people to get ahead, nearly three-quarters of working-class voters would prefer “more public investment in apprenticeships and career pathways to help non-college workers acquire better skills” rather than other options centered on stronger labor unions or forgiving student loans. Likewise, a plurality of working-class voters see “degree requirements for jobs that don’t need them” as the biggest barrier to people like them accessing a good job today.
Unsurprisingly, more than half (56 percent) said that forgiving student debt is unfair “to the majority of Americans who don’t get college degrees and will increase costs for students and taxpayers alike over the long term.”
An agenda with these two themes—shifting education power from vested interests to parents and shifting from a focus on college to other career pathways and training programs—can be called opportunity pluralism (a topic I’ve discussed in this publication). Opportunity pluralism affirms that there are many different ways to prepare individuals for social roles, jobs, and economic opportunities—not just the traditional K-12 school to college to job path.
It is based on a simple equation: Knowledge + Networks = Opportunity. As the adage goes: it’s not only what you know but who you know.
The building blocks of opportunity include useful individual knowledge and strong personal relationships. For example, Harvard economist David Deming has studied the economics of skill development—including the relationship between knowledge and social networks—and finds that the importance of cognitive skills has declined as a predictor of wage success while the importance of building relationships, networking, and social skills has increased. These social skills include communication, cooperation, collaboration, social intelligence, and conflict resolution. Deming concludes that after age 35, wage growth is actually greater in jobs that require these important social skills.
Career pathways programs recognize the vital importance of building social skills and social networks through community partnerships. These partnerships forge alliances between institutions that integrate education, training, employment, support services, and job placement. They include collaboration between K-12 schools, workforce training institutions, civic organizations, employers, and postsecondary education.
Programs typically involve:
Work and career exposure through opportunities like job fairs and workplace visits;
Experience through practical activities like internships and apprenticeships;
Dual enrollment in high school and postsecondary learning and skill development programs;
Boot camps for acquiring specific skills; and
Support services to help individuals get continuing training and job advancement.
Some partnership programs exist outside traditional K-12 and postsecondary education. For instance, Building Futures is a Rhode Island Registered Apprenticeship Program with 29 public, private, and nonprofit organizations that award industry credentials in fields such as construction, healthcare, manufacturing, commercial fisheries, and marine trades—fields that are very attractive to many working Americans.
While program specifics vary, they have four common features: an academic curriculum linked with labor market needs, leading to a credential and decent income; career exposure and work, including mentor-advisers; a written civic compact between employers, trade associations, and community partners; and supportive local, state, and federal policies that make these programs possible. They produce what Opportunity@Work calls STARS—workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes.
These programs are succeeding. A Fordham Institute analysis describes some of the prominent benefits. They increase graduation rates, improve college outcomes (especially for women and disadvantaged students), boost students' incomes, and enhance other skills like perseverance and self-efficacy. Moreover, these pathway programs do not preclude college since those who take career-oriented courses are just as likely as their peers to attend a college or university.
This opportunity pluralism agenda for working-class Americans is built on strong knowledge and networks. It aims to ensure that working-class families have multiple education and training pathways to prepare them for good jobs, satisfying careers, and flourishing lives. This journey begins in K-12 schools and should continue throughout life.
As Brookings Institution Senior Fellow William Galston writes, “The political preferences of working-class voters…[includes] support for government programs that would improve the prospects of upward mobility for the working class.” The political party that best offers working-class voters a positive opportunity pluralism agenda—built on useful skills, networks, and job paths for all people—will reap the rewards.
Bruno V. Manno is a senior advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy.