Giving Compass' Take:

• Public education is still far behind and reform needs to happen for it to get better for future students. The author argues that millennials will be the key to helping get public education where it needs to be. 

• What are the barriers inciting change within public education? What difficulties might the millennials run into?

•  Read the previous article the author wrote last November on millennial education. 

One of my goals this year is inspiring fellow millennials to join the work of improving America’s public schools. Last November, I wrote in The 74 about the results of a poll showing that millennials believe education provides the best opportunity for success in life — much more so than factors like how much money you have or who your connections are. As with baby boomers and Generation X, the value millennials put on getting a good education seems imprinted in our DNA.

Depending on how you draw the boundaries for what defines my generation — the Pew Research Center recently argued persuasively that the brackets should be 1981-1996 — we’re about 75 million strong, almost one-quarter of the population and soon to be, if not already, the largest generation in American history. The Brookings Institution estimates we’ll comprise 75 percent of the workforce by 2025.

Another reason we’ll have a huge impact on education: We have a lot of it. More millennials have completed college than did Gen Xers or baby boomers, according to Pew, and education is associated with social participation, influence, and social capital. (And we’re still graduating.)

What’s more, nearly twice the percentage of millennial women have earned higher ed degrees as boomer-era women did.

And yet. The education industrial complex has resisted changes for more than a century. And billions of dollars spent to reduce race and income disparities since the 1960s have still left poor and minority children years behind — a gap that today is widening between more and less affluent students.

Change is never easy, but millennials are still a good bet to improve schools. Here’s why:

  • We owe less to the educational status quo.
  • We’re diverse.
  • We live in cities.
  • We believe jobs should reflect our values.
  • We’re action-oriented.

Read the full article about Millennials will help education thrive by Romy Drucker at The 74