Enhancing opportunities for success

Multicultural Education, Fall 2000 by Hillis, Michael R

In the mythology of U.& society, there lies the deeply seated premise that any person, no matter their background or circumstances, can rise to whatever level in society is desired. A common scenario replayed in American life that exemplifies this is the person who comes from poverty, overcomes many obstacles, and achieves financial and social success. Within this story, we witness the values of opportunity, individualism, hard work, and the accumulation of material goods and power. These people become "poster children" of the American dream: a dream that everybody in America can pursue and obtain. A dream that shows U.S. society as one without rigid class boundaries where every result is determined by individual action.

The logic of opportunity is powerful and, in many ways, an important variable in what enables individuals to succeed in U.S. society (although how we determine what is success can certainly be challenged). In recent years, however, the legitimacy of equitable opportunity has become challenged through the recognition of highly stable classes of people. William Julius Wilson (1987), for example, has used the term "persistent poverty" to describe a segment of U.S. society that has little opportunity for social mobility. This group, through a combination of complex social and economic factors, continues to be economically marginalized, devalued, and provided with few opportunities in U.S. society. Although many people recognize this problem, at the same time there continues to be an implicit understanding that the lack of success is the result of personal irresponsibility, for to question the existence of equal opportunity would call into question how egalitarian our society truly is.

In Gregory J. Fritzberg's new book, In the Shadow of "Excellence". Recovering a Vision of Educational Opportunity for All, the issues of opportunities, barriers, success, and failure are examined, while advocating the development of an authentic meritocracy. The central idea of a meritocracy argues that people should be evaluated based on what they can do, and not whatever social category they may be placed in (e.g., ethnicity and gender). Behind this concept, however, is the assumption that we all begin from the same starting point and that as a society we should reward those people who make it to the finish line first. People should not be given preferential treatment, as the logic extends, but instead our system should be color-blind, gender-blind, and blind towards any other factor that places people at an unfair advantage.

At this purely abstract, theoretical level, the line of argument has some value. As mentioned above, we want people who will strive for excellence and a color-blind system, theoretically, could help achieve this. Unfortunately, we do not live in an abstract, utopian world where all people begin at the same point. Instead, when we examine the starting line, we realize that certain people and groups of people in U.S. society start at different points in the race. Consequently, the issue of unfair advantage is already at play.

Fritzberg's central position is that in order to create an authentic meritocracy, where "talented individuals from all classes would rise to important positions because inequalities of birth would be mitigated by egalitarian social programs" (p. 18), then we must attend to the issue of educational opportunity. Based on the idea that broad based public education can provide students with the basic skills and orientations to succeed in society, the author attempts to shed light on the fact that currently many students in our society do not have this opportunity. As a result, Fritzberg points out that it should not surprise us to see differing levels of achievement across racial, ethnic, and gender classifications. These indicators of success, in part the outcomes of opportunity, call into question whether an authentic meritocracy currently exists.

The solution Fritzberg advocates is "a re-commitment to substantive equal educational opportunity" (p. 17). By substantive equal educational opportunity, he argues that rather than simply assessing whether there are barriers to equal opportunities, substantive equal opportunity "looks at occupational and economic results, and assesses the actual life chances for individuals in various social groups" (p. 17). This is an important distinction and one that strikes at the heart of this argument. For rather than simply stating that barriers need to be broken, as we often hear our politicians say, Fritzberg's argument advocates that governmental bodies re-commit themselves to intervene in areas where opportunities are less. Although this position may bother some, especially in a time of "big government bashing," what Fritzberg effectively communicates is the need for both federal and state leadership to fully commit itself to increasing opportunities for all its citizens. The current rhetoric of "responsibility" and "hard work" must be accompanied by actions that address the lack of opportunity for many citizens.