There Is Nothing for You Here, page 45
Changes in technology come roughly every five to seven years, so no one can ever have any expectation of permanence in the workplace. People’s skills will always need upgrading. But the right kind of education for the twenty-first century is the one that prepares us to weather these changes—and which does so equally, without regard to where we are from or what our parents do.
Educational success and participation in all forms of higher education (academic, professional, technical training, skills development) are influenced by seeing others blaze a trail and setting examples that people can follow. If everyone you know has headed in the same direction by leaving school early to work in a coal mine or a factory or in the local retail or agricultural sectors, then that tends to shape the realm of possibilities. Especially if you want to break out of a local employment pattern or go to college, mentorship is critical. If you don’t have parental or family examples of higher education to fall back on, then you need teachers, school counselors, and representatives of the broader community to point out the possibilities and help you access opportunities.
When “there is nothing for you here” in terms of college or job prospects, the best and the brightest—those with talent and educational attainment—leave after they finish school to look for something elsewhere. Most of them, like me, move away and don’t come back. They become part of a brain drain, taking their educational perspectives and personal networks with them to benefit other towns, cities, and countries.
Higher education in this case splits families and diminishes communities rather than building them up. It becomes a way out of a beleaguered town, not a way of bringing in new skills and ideas to fix things. Aspiring students have no one to look up to on the educational path or to refer to when looking for advice on how to do things, including dealing with the next steps on the academic ladder and tailoring course choices to future job prospects. When all the people ahead of you with that kind of knowledge have left, you are on your own.
In recent years, two best-selling books in the United States described the challenge of getting out of poverty and getting an education in low-income and divided America. J. D. Vance in Hillbilly Elegy and Tara Westover in Educated focused on how they as individuals succeeded against the odds and moved from blighted economic regions and harsh family circumstances to prestigious universities such as Yale and Harvard. Getting into college was the pinnacle of achievement. Neither offered much in the way of observation about how others might follow their path. Vance’s and Westover’s accomplishments were something completely remarkable, not replicable. Indeed, in 2020, Hillbilly Elegy was turned into a Hollywood movie, underscoring the unique nature of Vance’s childhood and adult success.
The reason others could not and cannot emulate the individual academic and life successes of J. D. Vance and Tara Westover is rooted in the particulars of the crisis of opportunity. Their stories underscore the persistence of deep structural barriers, including discrimination against low-income students, the inadequacies of K-12 education in impoverished areas, and racial and gender disparities in access to education. Poor children are more likely to become poor adults. Poverty then extends across generations, as I experienced with my own family. My dad could not break out of his parents’ pattern. They did not break out of their parents’. I succeeded at school and won a place at university not because I was exceptional but because I had help. No one does anything completely alone. Life is a team sport.
Of all the breaks that I got in life, my luckiest was timing. The UK educational system was changing just as I was born in the 1960s, opening new opportunities for working-class kids. By the time I started elementary school in the 1970s, the United Kingdom had devised a reasonably robust social program for education. Poor kids could get a hand up, not just a handout. This included funding for school exchange programs, job placement schemes, and extracurricular activities as well as for college tuition and living expenses from local education authorities for those who needed it—and who actually applied for the programs.
For every rung of the educational ladder I found a subsidy or a grant to pull me up. Of course, you had to know the programs and grants were there in the first place. I found out about them because my parents were rooted in strong extended family and community networks that we could draw upon. I had generous mentors and even benefactors in the UK—relatives, neighbors, teachers, my local member of Parliament, prominent alumni of St. Andrews University—who pointed out these opportunities to me. They gave me access to their personal and professional connections: people I could talk to for the advice to help me advance further. I ultimately had the same experience in the United States, thanks to access to new university-based networks and contacts from Harvard.
Far too many people who were born into similar circumstances in the generations after me did not have the same opportunities. Deprived and disadvantaged, they will continue to be preyed upon by unscrupulous politicians who offer them a promise of opportunity in return for their votes. These left-behind people deserve better. But their problems are everyone’s. They are our fellow Americans and fellow Brits, in some cases our family members and friends. Helping them will not be purely a selfless act. Because as long as they feel that there is no hope for them, there will be no hope for the rest of us. There will be nothing for us, anywhere.
Afterword
Creating Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
While federal, state, and local governments, large foundations, and wealthy individual philanthropists play critical roles in creating opportunities for underprivileged Americans, each of us as an individual actor can help create what I describe in this book as the infrastructure of opportunity. The greater your wealth is, the more positional authority you have; the more free time you enjoy and the larger your personal and professional networks are, the more you can do. But everyone can and should play a role in helping to break down barriers and even the playing field.
If you are a CEO or an executive of a corporation or other large organization:
Create mentoring programs, job placement schemes, and internships that provide disadvantaged youth with opportunities to learn and gain experience that will help them build the foundation for long-term career success.
Demonstrate the courage to acknowledge, confront, and overcome the systemic biases—racial, social, or gender-based—that are embedded in your current recruiting, promotion, and compensation practices.
Set aggressive hiring targets for women, minorities, and underrepresented groups, including those from low-income, working-class backgrounds who are the first in their families to go to college. Reward the individuals and corporate functions that achieve their targets; make those that do not pay a penalty.
Recruit at educational institutions that serve historically deprived groups. Look beyond the formal résumé. Take chances on candidates who may lack the requisite experience but demonstrate determination and ambition.
If you are retired and have free time:
Volunteer as a mentor or teacher for one of the many social service and nonprofit organizations that serve the disadvantaged, including local schools.
Act as a local ambassador for public and national service programs, volunteering schemes, and other community-wide initiatives. Raise awareness about the benefits and importance of assisting these organizations within your own peer and social groups with a concrete call to action. Ensure that those with more limited access to information or resources also know about these ventures.
Participate in intragenerational exchanges and collaborations. Offer counsel to younger groups, especially those from underrepresented communities and youth with no parental or mentor figures in their lives. Encourage them to be purposeful and help break barriers. Tell your own stories. Communicate your regrets and failures, including what you have learned from your personal experiences.
If logistically possible, consider acting as a host by offering free or affordable housing to students, school exchange participants, interns, volunteers, or young professionals who have limited financial means, including in exchange for housekeeping or other services.
If you are an experienced working professional:
Make a conscious effort to nurture diverse talent within your workplace and help prepare younger colleagues—especially women, racial minorities, and other underrepresented groups—for leadership roles. Equip them with the necessary skills and confidence to succeed.
Act as a professional connector between people from different social, economic, racial, and geographic (rural/urban) backgrounds. Convene groups inside and outside the workplace with diverse sets of perspectives and experiences to encourage nontraditional synergies.
Build active mentor-mentee relationships with young professionals, especially those coming from less advantaged backgrounds. If you know others who might be better equipped to play the mentor role for a certain individual, facilitate an introduction.
Reach back to your college alumni networks as well as to local further education institutions to offer mentoring or opportunities for current students to seek career advice.
If you are a young professional:
Create peer networks within your organization to assist colleagues from nontraditional backgrounds who may be struggling in the workplace.
Maintain ties with alumni networks for college and high school to offer next-steps career guidance. Volunteer to host physical or virtual career fairs at your organization.
Act as a mentor or volunteer for a local social service or nonprofit with educational programs for disadvantaged youth.
Pool resources with other young professionals to sponsor a young person from the local community to cover the costs for that person to take advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach, such as attending an educational summer camp or taking part in sports or other enrichment programs.
If you are a college professor or administrator:
Open courses virtually to high school students from underprivileged backgrounds to give them a taste of college. Partner with organizations that fund educational programs in high-poverty areas. Pair school and college students who enroll in these courses together for further content discussions and to foster mentoring relationships that will help disadvantaged kids apply to college.
Establish bridge and advisory programs for incoming students from underresourced public schools and those who are the first in their families to attend college to assist them with the academic, social, and cultural transition to the first year.
Create initiatives that encourage students from different backgrounds to participate in study or peer groups to listen and learn from each other’s perspectives, not just review course materials.
Offer students course credit for mentoring K-12 students and volunteering in local community projects, nonprofits, and other organizations that offer programs for disadvantaged youth.
If you are a college student:
Use volunteer time as an opportunity to explore potential career paths as well as gain new skills for professional development. Identify service opportunities and organizations that make a local impact and raise campus awareness about their activities. Consider taking college courses with a service component.
Initiate collaborations with peers from other academic institutions, including community colleges and universities with historically underrepresented student populations. Encourage faculty members to develop joint virtual programming on areas of common interest.
Take an alternative spring break. Ask your friends and classmates to volunteer with you and make a difference together. Seek out opportunities to volunteer in geographies (rural/urban) and communities different from your own.
Provide free tutoring to middle and high school students. Prioritize students from underprivileged communities as well as students with learning difficulties and disabilities. Offer insight and assistance on choosing future courses of study. Share your own experiences.
If you are a teacher:
Ensure that all students in class are able to access the full range of federal, state, and community programs and other social and academic assistance they are eligible for. In some cases their families may simply not know that resources are available.
Pay particular attention to children with no parental or mentor figures in their lives. Consider how they can tap into school or community networks, including counselors, other teachers, nonprofit organizations, and recent alumni who can assist them.
Explore opportunities to create ties with teachers in other schools for virtual class exchanges and to share best practices. If you are a private-school teacher, reach out to a public-school counterpart in a disadvantaged area. Conversely, connect with another teacher and his or her class in a more racially diverse or different type of (rural/urban) school system.
Encourage underprivileged students to think about college early in their K-12 education, and enroll in service learning, local community projects, and sports and other groups that offer summer camps, tutoring, and other preparatory programs for disadvantaged children. Consider partnering your class with specific local organizations.
Acknowledgments
This book is the product not just of the months that were devoted to its immediate research and writing but also of several years of discussions and joint work with colleagues at the Brookings Institution, dating back to 2000 and especially surrounding the contentious American presidential election of 2016. It is also the result of personal and professional experiences, extensive reading, and detailed notes made in the years before.
I received ideas from many sources, particularly from family members and close friends on both sides of the Atlantic. I am especially grateful to my in-laws—all the immediate and extended members of the Keen family spread over Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and other states—who have shared their thoughts and views with me at countless family events and meetings since the early 1990s and in recent phone calls. Younger generations of the Keens, Millennials and Generation Z, offered important insight and their own perspectives on the topics in the book as I began thinking it through: Caleb Keen, Ellie Keen, Eric Keen, Levi Keen, Malika Hill Keen, Marie Louise Keen, Michael Keen, Noel Keen, Andy Kirchoff, Joe Kirchoff, Martin Kirchoff, Matthew Kirchoff, and Tim Kirchoff. Members of my own extended family in the U.S., including Sue Anne Mather, Scott LeVine, and other relatives, also offered their thoughts.
Back home in North East England, my parents and grandparents and the older cousins of my parents’ generation played an important role in shaping my perspectives on the theme of opportunity and what individuals can do to create the infrastructure of opportunity in forgotten places. “Uncle” Gordon Encinias, who was born in Bishop Auckland but moved to Coatbridge, outside Glasgow—the “Iron Burgh,” once one of the largest coal- and steel-producing towns in the UK before it lost its industry—spent years trying to help his struggling community. After serving as the head of the local tenants’ housing association, he became a town councilor in his old age, just as he had been diagnosed with what would prove to be terminal cancer. He turned his own hard life of poverty, raised by a single mother after World War II, into the basis for public service. His first order of business was to fix the broken playground in his blighted neighborhood to make sure local children had somewhere safe to play. “Uncle” Gordon, along with “Uncle” Charlie Crabtree and Dorothy Long, who encouraged me to study Russian during the 1980s “war scare,” believed that anyone (no matter what their background) could be an agent of change if they put their mind to it.
The “clever lasses” from the extended Hill family—Jennifer Bogan, Elizabeth Fisher, Clare Hammond, Kathleen Kirby, Julia McGill, and Susan McKenzie—blazed a trail for working-class girls like me to go to university. They showed me it was possible. Other family members—Jeff Goodman, Malcolm and Rosemary Murray, Alastair and Ian Newton, and Florence and Ray Rix—kindly functioned as family focus groups and sounding boards as I started on the book proposal. They then provided information at key points along the way. Mam, June Hill, acted as an unpaid research assistant, sending me a large stash of family archive materials as well as articles from the Northern Echo and the Bishop Press.
Friends and neighbors over many decades and generations in Bishop Auckland, some of whom are sadly no longer alive, were instrumental in shaping my thinking. My godparents, John and Bessie Williams, regaled me with tales of the Welsh slate-mining villages of Snowdonia and the difficulties they faced as native Welsh-speakers, including being beaten at school for conversing in their own language. John and Bessie gave me material and practical support, including driving me to out-of-school activities and local job interviews when I couldn’t get there on the bus or my bike. They, along with other neighbors from our cul-de-sac—Sidney and Hilda Lockey, Billy and Linda Dixon, Steve and Linda Owers, Paul and Viviane Wayne, the Roche family, Cynthia Bland, and Keith and Michelle Stapleton—all played pivotal roles at different stages in my life. School friends from Etherley Lane and Bishop Barrington—Stew Crombie, Craig Currie, Aidan Davison, Danny Gibson, Sue Elgey Hare, Lorraine Joyce, Carolyn Miller, Mandy Roche Padfield, Jane Burrell Redfern, Martin Russell, Peter Scott, Ariadne Shore-Pullen—all shared ideas that informed this book. They filled me in on their children’s experiences with the same issues that we faced in the 1980s. Teachers at Etherley Lane and Bishop Barrington School—Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Everett, Mr. Gibson, Dr. Marshall, Mr. Noble-Eddy, Miss Wilson; our late member of Parliament, Lord Derek Foster; and Tony Sutcliffe, who directed County Durham’s international school exchanges, and his wife, Catherine, helped me navigate my early educational journey.
