Stephanie's “light touch” approach is intentional, and the ideas in this book are meant to be a starting place. I know because I asked. The fact that I contributed this foreword shows that Stephanie understands and continues to grapple with these realities, as reflected in her preface.
Competencies, credentials, connections, and cash are the currencies needed to make it in this country. They are all you need if you are white. If you are Black, indigenous, or a person of color, however, making the commitment to build these currencies has to be coupled with a critical analysis of why they have been denied historically, and why the systems charged with your success are still operating under rules that were designed for your failure.
As a Black woman with children and grandchildren, I will call out the need to acknowledge a fifth quality to accompany the currencies, one that enables young people of color to not only make it but to thrive: collective identity. I look forward to hearing more about this in Stephanie's next book.
Karen J. Pittman
Co-Founder, President & CEO
The Forum for Youth Investment
FOREWORD BY MARIA FLYNN
How do we connect current and future workers to high-paying, in-demand jobs? I've devoted my professional life to answering that question. In truth, it's always been more than a career to me.
Stephanie and I are both “Jersey Girls.” I grew up outside of Trenton, New Jersey, immersed in issues of workforce development. My father was a leader at the New Jersey Department of Labor, and my mother was the office manager at our local career and technical education high school. Discussions of the intersection of school and work—from state policy considerations to the plight of students struggling to find their way—were constants at our dinner table.
Now, decades later, Stephanie and I both have the privilege of being moms. She has two boys, and I have two girls. Like all moms, I want my daughters to have the tools they need to thrive in the workforce. Today, that's not a simple task. The formula I was taught—go to college, get a job, advance my career, and eventually (hopefully!) retire—is outdated. It won't work for my daughters—or Stephanie's sons. Nor will it work for their peers. The world today, marked by constant technological innovation, moves too quickly. And for too many individuals across the country currently in the labor force, that “traditional” formula already isn't working. This is particularly true for Black and brown Americans, one in five of whom is living in poverty at the time of this writing.
Our education and workforce systems are failing these individuals from a young age, preventing them from reaching their potentials and succeeding in the workforce. In a society in which postsecondary degrees are directly correlated with higher earnings, Black students receive only 14 percent of all associate's degrees and just 11 percent of all bachelor's degrees conferred today.1 This not only reflects the deep inequities and unjust outcomes that pervade the world of education and work, but it reveals a true loss to society on a broader scale—think of all the talent and innovation squandered by our broken systems.
It is no exaggeration to say that I'm writing this foreword during turbulent times, some may even say a moment of reckoning for our country. Centuries of racial injustice in every corner of society, from policing and criminal justice to education and work, are coming to a head. Protestors march in streets across the nation declaring a simple truth: “Black Lives Matter.” It's time for those in power to start listening. Meanwhile, we are dealing with the most devastating health and economic crisis since the Great Depression, caused by the spread of COVID-19.
As of this writing, more than 40 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits in four months, and our social systems are buckling under the weight. Of these newly unemployed workers, 80 percent are low-income, and the pandemic has had an outsized impact on people of color, women, and those without postsecondary degrees. In fact, one in four Black Americans has been laid off as a result of the crisis, compared to 15 percent of white Americans.2 The truth is that these underlying disparities have existed for a long time, but we were just handed a magnifying glass to see them more clearly.
I spent more than a decade at the US Department of Labor tackling education and workforce disparities and challenges through policy, legislative, and regulatory initiatives across three presidential administrations. Feeling stifled by a system resistant to change, I did what very few federal officials did at the time: I left.
That experience, and my subsequent decade at the nonprofit Jobs for the Future (JFF), shaped my philosophy toward education and workforce reform. At JFF, where I now serve as president and CEO—and where I proudly call Stephanie a colleague—we adopt a dual transformation approach to change with a renewed commitment to equity. Making It embodies this philosophy.
In order to reimagine education and work, we must embrace change from within our systems and drive change outside of them. Neither strategy is as effective alone as the two are in tandem. Often, within systems, there's little appetite for bold or disruptive thinking. But these structures are powerful tools for change and service delivery at scale. By leveraging existing systems while also working outside them, and investing in innovative solutions, we can make real, scalable progress and provide economic opportunity for all.
Making It examines what young people need to be ready for tomorrow's world with this approach in mind. A high school diploma, or even a bachelor's degree, is not enough for a young person to develop a thriving career. Stephanie disrupts this education paradigm, honestly and clearly laying out the currencies young people will need to succeed (not simply the degrees, though credentials are important), while also describing ways in which educators can build these currencies with the tools already at their disposal.
Many skills that I use on a daily basis in my current role are ones I learned on the job during my teenage years—from my stint as a “salad bar manager” at a Bonanza steakhouse to working retail at a men's clothing store on the Jersey Shore. And I was able, with the help of my “lifelines,” as Stephanie calls them, to piece together these currencies in a way that built a path forward—largely in parallel to my academic experience.
For far too long, our education system has been disconnected from the world of work, which has had serious consequences for many young people, particularly those without the social capital needed to navigate the workforce. Young people today leave high school without the credentials or skills they need to succeed, and without a GPS to direct them to in-demand careers or to the pathways that will lead them there. Most college graduates also feel unprepared for the workforce, with little real-world experience under their belts but with mountains of student debt on their backs. The system needs reimagining from within and from without.
The CEOs with whom I work regularly tell me that they want problem solvers, critical thinkers, and collaborators, but our education system isn't equipping young people with these skills. Businesses want employees with technical skills, of course, but they also want people with the ability to adapt and learn, because today's jobs may not exist in 5 or 10 years as technology continues to evolve. In an age when automation is continuing to reshape the workplace, young people will need to prepare for multiple discrete jobs across their lifetimes, requiring them to constantly reskill. They will need to become lifelong learners, and Stephanie has designed solutions for this future that are practical, actionable, and universal.
In this time of rapid change, Making It provides a roadmap for those of us seeking to prepare young people—both inside and outside of the classroom—for the world of work. Whether you are a parent, teacher, administrator, or policy wonk, it's time to embrace a new