Beyond Education Triage

Social policies seeking to ameliorate racial and economic segregation stem in part from the adverse disparities associated with the alternatives—limited income mobility, intractable concentrated poverty, negative health outcomes, constrained access to quality housing, and poor social services—which generate a cycle of economic inequalities and more segregation. Many social scientists have argued that high-quality educational opportunities for students experiencing segregation are linked to better life-course outcomes. Education could thus be viewed as a potential intervention to address segregation. This chapter argues that the predominant approach to educational reform is analogous to triage in medicine. The effects of triage policy have been anemic. Its failure is reinforcing segregation. Instead, we need to develop a different approach to education and youth development, an approach that takes an intergenerational perspective on education achievement, attainment, and youth development in our nation’s most segregated communities. Examples are provided.