Abstract: As the language of “college and career readiness” continues to permeate the psyche of America’s public education system in both suburban and urban districts, the fixation on preparing students for college and careers is potentially harmful for students, particularly urban students of color. In promoting “college and career readiness”, certain assumptions are taken for granted: that schools are sites of egalitarian meritocracy and not spaces of social reproduction, that tomorrow’s job market desires more individuals with formal education, and that the market will a viable one for qualified and willing workers. Here, I argue that as “college and career readiness” continues to be the dominant approach in our nation’s schools, it ignores the competing realities that the workplace of tomorrow is growing harsher as corporations sustain efforts to maximize profits by keeping labor costs low through increased mechanization and computerization, neoliberal privatization of public sector jobs, and offshoring. At the same time, today’s students of color are even more vulnerable to tomorrow’s workplace realities in that they will continue to grapple with systemic racial discrimination along with the general tenuous nature of tomorrow’s job market. Thus students, who are being schooled in “college and career readiness” will have to contend with the realization that though they are more formally educated than ever, the economy of tomorrow will still deem them expendable.
Article can be accessed at: https://www.academia.edu/42059332/Ignoring_the_Elephant_in_the_Room_Unpacking_the_shortcomings_of_college_and_career_readiness_as_an_educative_approach_in_urban_schools_as_preparation_for_tomorrows_economy
