Alan Jenkins

Opportunity, Framing and Values

Last week my colleagues at The Opportunity Agenda released The State of Opportunity in America, a national report that measures our country's progress in fulfilling the promise of opportunity for all. The report analyzes trends in employment, education, housing, healthcare, criminal justice, political participation, and other areas, all through the lens of opportunity.

The report finds that, despite some areas of progress, opportunity is in deep trouble in America. The traditional steppingstones to opportunity--a decent job at a living wage, an affordable home, a college education, quality healthcare and economic security--are moving farther and farther out of reach for everyday Americans. And some groups of Americans--especially low-income families and many people of color, immigrants, and women--are facing multiple barriers to opportunity that often cannot be overcome through hard work and perseverance alone. The report includes recommendations for expanding opportunity for all and closing the "opportunity gaps" that many communities are facing.

After a week of discussing the The State of Opportunity in America with advocates, policymakers, and the media, we're finding that one aspect of the report is attracting a surprising amount of interest: the direct connection that it draws between national policy and national values.

We define opportunity as the idea that everyone should have a fair chance to achieve his or her full potential. Ensuring that fair chance depends on the fulfillment of six core values that speak to who we are as a nation: Equal treatment, economic security and mobility, a voice in decisions that affect us, a sense of shared responsibility for each other, and a chance to start over after missteps or misfortune--what many Americans call "redemption."

There's been a lot written in recent years by folks like Welton Gaddy, George Lakoff, and Thomas Frank about the need for progressives to talk not only about facts and policy but also about values. Former-President Jimmy Carter has a new book on national values, and weighed in on the subject at last week's funeral for Coretta Scott King. We're finding real excitement around our own efforts to articulate the values that make up the American ideal of opportunity and to hold our nation's policies and leaders to those standards.

Later this week I'll be posting more about this values-based approach and how we can all apply it to policy debates like President Bush's budget and the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

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Posted at 11:21 AM, Feb 13, 2006 in Progressive Agenda
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