教育不平等打碎了美國夢大綱

The best escalator to opportunity in America is education. But a new study underscores that the escalator is broken.
在美國，機遇的最佳升降機是教育。但從一項新研究可以明顯看出，升降機壞了。

We expect each generation to do better, but, currently, more young American men have less education (29 percent) than their parents than have more education (20 percent).
我們希望每一代人都能更好，然而，當前一代美國年輕人中，受教育程度低於其父母的（29%）要比高於其父母的（20%）更多。

Among young Americans whose parents didn’t graduate from high school, only 5 percent make it through college themselves. In other rich countries, the figure is 23 percent.
在父母沒有讀完高中的年輕美國人中，自己能夠讀完大學的只有5%。而在其他富有國家，這個數字是23%。

The United States is devoting billions of dollars to compete with Russia militarily, but maybe we should try to compete educationally. Russia now has the largest percentage of adults with a university education of any industrialized country — a position once held by the United States, although we’re plunging in that roster.
美國在軍事上投入數以十億計的美元與俄羅斯抗衡，但也許我們應該在教育上比一比。俄羅斯成年人中擁有大學學歷的比例是所有工業化國家裏最高的——這個位置曾經屬於美國，然而現在我們在這項排名裏一直往下掉。

These figures come from the annual survey of education from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., and it should be a shock to Americans.
這些數字來自經濟合作與發展組織（Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development，簡稱OECD）的年度教育調查報告，美國人應該爲此感到震驚。

A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility. But the American dream seems to have emigrated because many countries do better than the United States in educational mobility, according to the O.E.C.D. study.
美國夢的一個基本元素是平等的受教育機會，這是社會和經濟流動性的潤滑劑。然而這個夢似乎已經移居海外，因爲從OECD研究來看，很多國家在教育流動性上做的比美國好。

As recently as 2000, the United States still ranked second in the share of the population with a college degree. Now we have dropped to fifth. Among 25-to-34-year-olds — a glimpse of how we will rank in the future — we rank 12th, while once-impoverished South Korea tops the list.
一直到2000年時，美國持大學學歷者在人口中的佔比還排在第二位。現在已經跌到第五。在25到34歲這個年齡段——這一項指標可以反映我們將來的排名——我們排在第12位，曾經貧困的韓國現在是第一。

A new Pew survey finds that Americans consider the greatest threat to our country to be the growing gap between the rich and poor. Yet we have constructed an education system, dependent on local property taxes, that provides great schools for the rich kids in the suburbs who need the least help, and broken, dangerous schools for inner-city children who desperately need a helping hand. Too often, America’s education system amplifies not opportunity but inequality.
皮尤(Pew)的一項新調查發現，美國人認爲對我們國家構成最大威脅的是貧富差距的拉大。然而我們建立的這個教育系統，以地方物業稅爲依託，給市郊那些最不需要幫助的富人孩子提供了最好的學校，給內城那些最需要拉一把的孩子提供了不能正常運轉的危險學校。美國的教育系統，有太多時候是在放大不平等，而不是放大機遇。

My dad was a World War II refugee who fled Ukraine and Romania and eventually made his way to France. He spoke perfect French, and Paris would have been a natural place to settle. But he felt that France was stratified and would offer little opportunity to a penniless Eastern European refugee, or even to his children a generation later, so he set out for the United States. He didn’t speak English, but, on arrival in 1951, he bought a copy of the Sunday edition of The New York Times and began to teach himself — and then he worked his way through Reed College and the University of Chicago, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a university professor.
我父親是二戰難民，他逃離烏克蘭和羅馬尼亞，輾轉到了法國。他的法語毫無瑕疵，照理說應該在巴黎安頓下來。然而他認爲法國的階級過於分明，對一文不名的東歐難民來說很難有機會，甚至他的孩子那一輩也不行，所以他就去了美國。他不會英語，但1951年來到這裏時，他買了一份《紐約時報》週日版，開始自學——然後他靠自己的努力上了裏德學院(Reed College)和芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)，拿到了一個博士學位，成爲了一名大學教授。

He rode the American dream to success; so did his only child. But while he was right in 1951 to bet on opportunity in America rather than Europe, these days he would perhaps be wrong. Researchers find economic and educational mobility are now greater in Europe than in America.
他是乘着美國夢走向成功的；他唯一的孩子也是。他在1951年賭美國的機會比歐洲好，這是賭對了，然而放在今天，他就是錯的。研究人員發現，歐洲現在的經濟和教育流動性要強於美國。

That’s particularly sad because, as my Times colleague Eduardo Porter noted last month, egalitarian education used to be America’s strong suit. European countries excelled at first-rate education for the elites, but the United States led the way in mass education.
讓人尤爲傷感的是，正如時報同仁愛德華多·波特(Eduardo Porter)上月提到的，平等主義教育曾經是美國的優勢。歐洲國家擅長爲精英提供一流教育，但是美國的大衆教育領先。By the mid-1800s, most American states provided a free elementary education to the great majority of white children. In contrast, as late as 1870, only 2 percent of British 14-year-olds were in school.
到了19世紀中期，美國大多數州都會向絕大多數的白人孩子提供免費的小學教育。與此形成鮮明對比的是，英國直到1870年也只有2%的14歲孩子在讀書。

Then the United States was the first major country, in the 1930s, in which a majority of children attended high school. By contrast, as late as 1957, only 9 percent of 17-year-olds in Britain were in school.
而美國還是第一個實現讓多數孩子上高中的國家，那是在20世紀30年代。相比之下，一直到1957年，英國的17歲孩子只有9%在讀書。

Until the 1970s, we were pre-eminent in mass education, and Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University argue powerfully that this was the secret to America’s economic rise. Then we blew it, and the latest O.E.C.D. report underscores how the rest of the world is eclipsing us.
我們在大衆教育上的絕對優勢一直保持到20世紀70年代，哈佛大學(Harvard University)的克勞迪亞·戈爾丁(Claudia Goldin)和勞倫斯·卡茨(Lawrence Katz)曾擲地有聲地說，這是美國經濟崛起的祕訣。然後我們搞砸了，最新一期OECD報告顯示我們正在被世界甩在身後。

In effect, the United States has become 19th-century Britain: We provide superb education for elites, but we falter at mass education.
美國實際上變成了19世紀的英國：向精英提供一流教育，大衆教育卻衰敗不堪。

In particular, we fail at early education. Across the O.E.C.D., an average of 70 percent of 3-year-olds are enrolled in education programs. In the United States, it’s 38 percent.
我們在早期教育上尤爲失敗。在OECD報告中，參加了教育項目的3歲孩子平均達70%。美國是38%。

In some quarters, there’s a perception that American teachers are lazy. But the O.E.C.D. report indicates that American teachers work far longer hours than their counterparts abroad. Yet American teachers earn 68 percent as much as the average American college-educated worker, while the O.E.C.D. average is 88 percent.
在某些地方，美國的教師給人留下了懶惰的印象。但從OECD報告看，美國教師的工作時間遠比外國同行要長。而美國教師的收入是美國大學學歷工作者平均收入的68%，OECD報告中的平均值則是88%。

Fixing the education system is the civil rights challenge of our era. A starting point is to embrace an ethos that was born in America but is now an expatriate: that we owe all children a fair start in life in the form of access to an education escalator.
解決教育系統的問題是我們這個時代的民權挑戰。出發點應該是宣弘一種生於美國但已經背井離鄉的道德觀：我們應該通過教育升降機，給所有孩子的人生一個公平的起點。

Let’s fix the escalator.
我們要修好這臺升降機。