Making It. Stephanie Malia Krauss

and economic justice to enable all young people to navigate toward currency-driven success in life as they acquire competencies, cash, connections, and credentials. Making it defines a social contract to educate all learners well – a contract that's long overdue.”

      Pamela Moran, executive director of the Virginia School Consortium for Learning and co-author of Timeless Learning

      “If you fear the current education system is outdated, Making It is a must-read to deliberately create mind space to reimagine what is possible. It offers honest insights about future trends and disruptions, including questioning the value of current qualifications like the high school diploma toward meaningful credentials. It asks for revamping graduation requirements and rethinking meaningful credentials on what a valuable high-quality diploma might look like. This requires recognizing, undoing, and correcting the persistent inequities that harm kids in today's traditional education system focused on ranking and sorting kids, as well as stopping damaging privilege hoarding. It challenges adults to do the important work of grappling with uncertainties and turning to science on youth development to provide new opportunities through educational and economic pathways.”

      Susan Patrick, CEO of Aurora Institute

      “There are deep chasms in the opportunities young people have to accrue the currencies Krauss so clearly describes in Making It. Her book brings the study of youth development into current times. My blended family of three adolescent boys will benefit from me having read this, and my advocacy with state and local policymakers across this country will also surely benefit. This should be required reading for anyone shaping public policy beyond 2020.”

      Elizabeth Gaines, founder and director of Children's Funding Project

Making It

      What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World

       Stephanie Malia Krauss

Copyright © 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Krauss, Stephanie Malia, 1985- author.

      Title: Making it : what today’s kids need for tomorrow’s world / Stephanie Malia Krauss.

      Description: Hoboken, NJ : Jossey-Bass, [2021]

      Identifiers: LCCN 2020047586 (print) | LCCN 2020047587 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119577034 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119577010 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119577072 (epub)

      Subjects: LCSH: Life skills—Study and teaching (Secondary) | School-to-work transition. | Career education. | Education—Aims and objectives.

      Classification: LCC LC1037 .K73 2021 (print) | LCC LC1037 (ebook) | DDC 370.113—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047586

      LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047587

      COVER ART: © TANYA ST / ISTOCKPHOTO

      COVER DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHY

To the currency-builders who helped me make it, especially Mrs. Lewis and Jim.

       To my kids—Justice, Harrison, Chloe, and Brian—may you have everything you need to thrive and make it in tomorrow's world.

       To my husband, Evan. I am so glad you are the person I get to experience adulthood with. I love you very much.

PREFACE

      All authors want to write an evergreen book, and I am no exception. In Making It, I wanted to present enduring ideas with as much relevance for today's kids as tomorrow's. And writing wrapped up just as COVID-19 pummeled the planet into the worst public health and economic crises we have seen in our lifetimes; my final edits were made soon after the high-profile anti-Black murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—along with innumerable other acts of racial profiling and violence. These led to unrest and uprisings as well as a growing number of acknowledgments of racism by many in the white community. Many made a first-time commitment to work toward being antiracist.

      The year 2020 magnifies what happens when a centuries-old pandemic—America's brand of racism and anti-Blackness—collides with an altogether new pandemic, COVID-19.

      As I write this, we are in the midst of pandemic schooling, and no public health official, politician, pediatrician, or principal really knows what will happen. COVID-19 cases continue to rise, prompting fear from many and denial from others. As a mother of school-aged children, I am forced to accept that this is the world and time my children will grow up in.

In the following pages, you'll find stories of what it takes and the struggles that many children face as they try to make it in America. And in that struggle, I cannot help but see my own privilege and my children's good fortune. I am able to make choices for them right now that are only possible because of our whiteness and wealth. I can choose to have them learning at home with digital supports at our fingertips. I can take them on trips, wherever and whenever we want,