Access to quality pre-K, grade schools, colleges, and worker-training programs are the building blocks for a strong middle class, both now and in the future. Creating equal educational opportunities is our best chance at countering growing income inequality and the widening chasm separating our nation’s richest and poorest workers.
Our education system allows too many students to slip through the cracks, or never even make it off the starting blocks. From a shortage of funding for quality early childhood programs to flaws in programs designed to prepare low-income students for college, there are myriad weaknesses in our education system. Identifying the most urgent of these gaps, as well as the strategies to fix them, must be a central tenet of any viable plan for growing the middle class. New research can help us identify where policymakers can make the biggest impacts.
Please join us for a conversation on the challenges we face in educating to create a strong middle class and a workforce prepared for the 21st century.