Apparently education is not enough! At least according to a recent article in the Guardian regarding the "riots" or "events" in France in the forgotten, desolate banlieues (suburbs). The language depends on your point of view; in the "smart" (read:white) sectors, one refers to the burning of cars and demonstrations in the streets following the electrocution of two young French citizens of North African decent as riots; for those living in the communities from which the young protesters came, they are "events" or "the revolt."
The article states that "the schools in Clichy-sous-Bois are well funded and apparently not so bad." Yet young people (French citzens, born in the country, I remind you) still cannot find work. "their job application is likely to be turned down simply on the basis of their address and "foreign" name. If by some miracle they get to an interview, the job opening mysteriously disappears as soon as the interviewer sees the colour of their skin." Clearly, the problem lies not in education, but in the bias of the job market. How true is this for our country? I assume that we're less biased, but how many times has "looking the part" helped to land me a job? I'd say in every job I've had, my blond hair, blue eyes, and orthodontically corrected smile have helped at least in part. Not to say that I'm not qualified, but given two equally qualified candidates, was I chosen because of the way that I look?
This goes back to something I mentioned in my first entry in my blog, "Why Schools, Of Course." Schools cannot correct the bias of the job market or transform the economy to create more jobs. They can prepare students, but beyond that, there are other domains in society that must be examined for solutions. We can't keep blaming schools! Even in France, a country with much more socialism than America, they look to schools to fix a problem. Their country has much more government involvement in other sectors. I thought (and learned from Rothstein's "Out of Balance" article) that schools in America are often looked to for solutions because we don't have many other public sector areas we can use to solve societal problems. We can't fix poverty through the post office. And yet France looks to their schools as well to solve poverty and race problems.
Of course, I need to take into consideration the perspective of the author, who is an American (I'm pretty sure) and a Hoover Institution (a conservative think tank) senior fellow ('m certain). I found the article because of my Hoover Institution update email. In any case, a conservative would generally not want to create a new government agency or sector to solve unemployment problems; why not ship it off to the schools, which already exist? And while you're at it, make them charter schools so they are subject to more private sector-type pressure of supply and demand? This is part conjecture, but perhaps the control of goverment by conservatives has something to do with why we want school sto solve so many problems.
Incidentally, it would be interesting to have a French author's perspective. I wonder if they would also look to the schools as a solution. The government, at least from this author's perspective, did... but it would be interesting to see how a French journalist would see it.
By the way, I'm in this interesting reserach methods class that I will have to write about at some point.
"Despair turns to fury, but it's not too late to end France's war with itself" (The Guardian, June 8th, 2006)
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