Paths of Opportunity

Our world is changing. Mobility is declining, wealth gaps are growing, and employers are struggling to fill vacant positions with qualified candidates. To give all young people an equal opportunity to thrive in the 21st century workplace, we must fundamentally transform our approach to teaching and learning.     

It’s time to build a future in which public education truly makes it possible for all young people to thrive in life, pursue careers of their choosing, and shape our democracy.   

In the first report of our Paths of Opportunity series, we explore how young people’s experiences during their high school years shaped their economic and social mobility in adulthood, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. We found that:   

• Few young people who experienced poverty in adolescence experienced meaningful economic or social mobility in adulthood.   

• Strong academic outcomes made mobility much more likely.  

• Those who most need a strong academic foundation were the least likely to get access to it.  

• Strong academic outcomes alone didn’t outweigh the effects of poverty. 

PK-12 education remains foundational. But academics alone will not get young people where they need to go. We examined existing research, promising practices in the field, and observations from our work across 6,000 school systems, and identified five interconnected factors that we believe drive economic and social mobility: strong academics, career-connected learning, social capital, personal support, and civic engagement.  

The five factors of mobility serve as a call for collective action: We must step out of our siloes, build a far clearer roadmap for economic and social mobility, and bring that shared vision to life in a way that creates real results for young people.  

Measuring mobility is not enough; we must unite our efforts to change it.     

To learn more, download the report below.