What do we want from schools?

More and more, it seems, the public sees our public K-12 system as a means to entering college, the gateway to a higher income. All students must be "college ready". The conventional wisdom seems to hold that sending more poor students to college is the solution to poverty.

The ever-controversial Richard Rothstein writes recently in The American Prospect:

"If more youth from disadvantaged backgrounds got the education and training to compete for skilled jobs, would the number of good jobs expand to soak up these newly qualified beneficiaries of better schooling and active labor-market policies? Or would these youth displace competitors from middle-class backgrounds?"

It seems obvious to me that simply sending more students to college will not, in fact, help our economy in a meaningful way. Nor is it the magic bullet that is the solution to ending poverty. Nor will it serve to make our society more equal.

Schools certainly play a role. But so does economic policy that doesn't blindly serve the rich. So do strong unions and politicians that are elected with working people in mind. We need to stop buying into the idea that the wealthy and middle classes earned their salaries and homes simply by having good teachers and working hard in school. There were fortuitous circumstances that helped out. A major question for the future: will similar fortuitous circumstances return?