Making Education Work

Education is often called the “the great equalizer,” but today, educational outcomes have less to do with effort and ability and more to do with wealth inequality. Decades of policy choices have helped to create this dynamic and now Trump's Washington is pursuing an educational policy of deregulation and an economic policy of upward wealth redistribution. Continuing on this path is a grave threat to the American Dream.

A new book from Family-Centered Social Policy fellow and University of Michigan professor William Elliott III and his colleague at the University of Kansas, Melinda Lewis, urge something close to the opposite of our present track--progressive wealth redistribution targeted toward post-secondary achievement through a system of individualized accounts for children. They argue that by transforming our system of education finance from one of debt dependence to one of asset empowerment, we can make education the pathway to upward mobility that Americans believe it to be. 

Can such a system work practically? What lessons can we draw from similar approaches in the past and in practice today? Can it take root in a policy environment dominated by conversations about "free college" and expanding existing policy supports like Pell Grants? 

Please join us and an all-star panel, including leading experts on opportunity in America Darrick Hamilton of the New School and Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about educational achievement, wealth inequality, and the future of the American Dream. 

Follow the conversation online using #MakingEducationWork and following @NewAmericaFCSP.

Introduction: 

Justin King, @NewAmericaFCSP 
Policy Director, Family-Centered Social Policy 

Speakers: 

William Elliott III, @AssetsEducation 
Co-Author, Making Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children's Savings Accounts 
Professor, University of Michigan 
Director of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion (AEDI) 
Fellow, Family-Centered Social Policy 

Darrick Hamilton, @DarrickHamilton
Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, The New School 

Melinda Lewis, @MelindaKLewis 
Co-Author, Making Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children's Savings Accounts 
Associate Professor of Practice, University of Kansas 

Richard Reeves, @RichardvReeves 
Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution 
Author, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It