‘Penetrate the Ideological Fog’

A Political Analysis of Mike Rose’s Back to School: Why

Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education

Stephanie Zlotnick
B0855 Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts
Professor Barbara Gleason
May 12, 2022

In his book Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education,

Mike Rose calls for a democratization of education in the United States. He builds his argument

around personal anecdotes, stories of people he has encountered, historical facts, and more. The
framework that resonates with me most, however, is a cutting analysis of the politics of

education. By critiquing the beliefs of the American Right and connecting the emotional and

moral to the political, Rose aims to dismantle the prejudiced values within the government and

convince his reader that second-chance education has positive effects beyond economic growth.

He sets the tone for this argument in his introduction, and although nodding to his political

argument throughout the book, he emphasizes it in the second chapter.

Rose introduces his book with a thirty-page analysis of the educational landscape in the

US, peppered with stories of individuals whose rollercoasters of academic trajectories had a

profound impact on him; in doing so, he tugs at the reader’s heartstrings from page one. He tells

the story of Henry, a Latino community college student who was paralyzed from the waist down

by a gunshot shortly after being released from prison (3). Henry’s community college career

consisted of a reception job at the tutoring center and subsequently a jolt of inspiration and

motivation to obtain a four-year degree and turn his life around, demonstrating the profound

impact second-chance higher education can have on an individual.

It is stories like Henry’s that shape Rose’s argument that “our nation’s economic and

civic future lies more in the health of [state universities and local four- and two-year colleges]

than in the schools that regularly end up in the US News and World Report’s annual listing of the

top fifty colleges and universities” (8). To recognize this, Rose explains, we need more creative

ways to assess a school’s success. Historically, we “rely heavily on statistical measures” to

develop public policy but do not take into account the “history and culture and daily reality of

the place from which the data were collected” (14). With skewed data, policy makers can’t

possibly serve students adequately, and from this, Rose’s meticulous critique of the political

Right in the US is formed.

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 Rose points to the No Child Left Behind Act, which attempts to tie government funding

for schools to standardized benchmarks (15). He notes that this emphasis on hitting these marks

can lead to colleges “accepting only those who have a better chance of succeeding, limiting

opportunity for the most vulnerable” (16). Further, while “continual broadcasting of high failure

rates” as a result of unrealistic benchmarks occurs, public opinion of higher education becomes

full of hopelessness, and policy makers redirect funds to something else or cut them altogether

(16). Meanwhile, the soft spot for the underdog that underlies the American belief system shapes

the fundamental political platform of those same policy makers. Rose summarizes the Right’s

values:

“The [Right] party line is that the market, if left alone, will produce
the opportunity for people to advance, that the current sour
economy—though worrisome and painful—will correct itself if
commerce and innovation are allowed to thrive, and that the gap
between rich and poor is, in itself, not a sign of any basic
malfunction or injustice, for there are always income disparities in
capitalism” (17).

Despite statistics presented in fiscally conservative publications like National Review and

Economist that further expose the nonexistence of upward mobility for most people, the Right

rejects the fact that children born on different rungs of the income ladder grow up in completely

different economic universes, and therefore does nothing to change it (18). This is where the

hypocrisy reveals itself: The Right supports the idea of people pulling themselves up by their

bootstraps to join the free market while removing the opportunities needed to get boots in the

first place. And how do they justify it? Rose charges that many Rightists believe that people at

the lower end of the ladder, and thus minority groups, are simply not as intelligent and are

morally flawed (22). However, he writes, an idea like this “is so politically unpalatable” that

most public figures wouldn’t dare to express it in public (22). (On a side note: Back to School

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was published in 2012, and it seems that just a few years later—due to the 2016 presidential

election and the events leading up to it—the political climate shifted enough to begin to give

politicians permission to express these kinds of views without consequence. For example, at a

2018 rally in North Dakota, then President Trump, describing poor people said, “We got more

money. We got more brains. We got better houses, apartments. We got nicer boats. We’re

smarter than they are” (Cillizza). To add fuel to this classist fire, this is coming from a man who

was quoted in 1999 in The New York Times criticizing politicians who publicize their past

struggles with poverty: “…if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn't the

kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They're morons”

(Dowd). Regardless of this “unpalatable” opinion, he was eventually elected to be the President

of the United States.)

That said, Rose concludes that if we can “penetrate the ideological fog” that diminishes

public opinion of poor people, we will see a much more complex reality (23). We will see people

like Henry, whose stories are a mix of successes and setbacks, opportunities and barriers. With

this, Rose presents the argument that, yes, there is an economic rationale behind second-chance

programs, but more than that, “school is about more than a paycheck” (28).

These political critiques do pop up throughout the book with occasional jabs at the Right,

but the chapter that most echoes Rose’s political argument is chapter two: “Who Should Go to

College: Unpacking the College-for-All Versus Occupational Training Debate.” Rose recalls his

own educational experience in which high school tracks were set up for students and affected

pretty much everything in students’ lives. The tracks that a student could be placed onto included

academic, college preparation, general education, and vocational, and they ultimately directed

students to certain colleges, landed them in specific clubs and teams, and determined the social

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order of the school (57). The primary issue with these pathways in high school is that “working-

class and racial and ethnic minority students”—whose transcripts displayed comparable

achievement to those of their privileged peers—were more likely to be placed on general

education or vocational tracks, inherently foiling their opportunity for higher academic pursuits

(57). The effects of the Rightist economic policies trickle down to high school students,

perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Rose explores the debate between college-for-all arguments and vocational training,

acknowledging both sides. College-for-all proponents parallel Rose’s beliefs that college has

economic, intellectual, cultural, and civic benefits (63), while skeptics are concerned that this

mindset can “perpetuate a myth that personal fulfillment and economic security can be had only

by pursuing a college degree” (58). For a more balanced conclusion that takes both attitudes into

account, Rose references a previous work of his, The Mind at Work, in which he argues that

brain work and hand work are cognitively connected. He demonstrates how much brain work is

in fact needed for physical work and raises questions about the standardized definitions of

intelligence: “physical work is cognitively rich, and it is class bias that blinds us from honoring

that richness” (59). General education courses at vocational schools, he asserts, are often

“dumbed down and unimaginative,” echoing the myth that poor people aren’t smart (61).

Because of the deep connection between hand and brain work, Rose argues vocational programs

need to be more carefully structured to honor the extensive cognitive and academic abilities

required for physical work. He urges us to ask whether vocation-oriented programs provide

strong education in the literacy, mathematics, history, economics, science, and ethics that relate

to the work (61). Regardless of our views of the college-for-all versus vocational training debate,

Rose reminds us that the conversation itself points to the “history of inequality,” and that all

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resolutions must take into account educational, economic, civic, and moral issues (65), once

again reinforcing his critique of the political Right’s efforts to maintain a perpetually imbalanced

income structure.

Rose appeals to his readers’ empathy first by sharing the story of a man whose trauma-

filled life was set on a new path when he enrolled in a few classes at a community college,

tugging at our love of a happy ending. He then appeals to our logic by dissecting the harmful

aspects of the political Right’s values that camouflage as roads to happy endings but instead lock

people in destitute circumstances. With these appeals, he reinforces his primary argument that

second-chance education has both economic and civic effects on the nation as well as

transformative and emotional effects on individuals and families.

Back to School is made up of evidence that, when placed in the right hands, could inspire

policy makers to direct vital resources to second-chance institutions, ultimately transforming

lives, boosting the economy, and creating equitable opportunities for the next generation. The

question I must ask now is, are the right people reading this book or others like it? The pessimist

in me believes that the people who are considering Rose’s arguments are the ones who already

agree with him and want to learn more. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. I am one of

those people, and I have found this book profoundly important as a relatively new educator of

adults. Rose’s arguments provide insight into aspects of second-chance education that are both

new and offer fresh perspectives on concepts I’ve read about. But what about those who are in

positions of power and have never attended a public school, let alone a community college?

What about those who believe income disparity is inevitable and therefore not worth addressing?

Or those who simply have no interest in helping people who look different than them? I do

believe that Rose’s writing could open the minds and hearts of those people only if they are

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willing to ask questions, face their biases, be uncomfortable, and learn from others. Rose reveals

the need for the US to rethink education, specifically for adults, in order to build a more

democratic, equitable society. By expanding what it means to be educated, his writing has the

potential to enlighten people in power and encourage them to create opportunities for people of

all ages and backgrounds to maintain agency over their futures, much like Henry did.

Works Cited

Cillizza, Chris. “Donald Trump’s 54 Most Outrageously over-the-Top Lines from His North
Dakota Speech - CNNPolitics.” CNN, 28 June 2018,
edition.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/donald-trump-north-dakota-speech/index.html.

Dowd, Maureen. “Opinion | Liberties; Trump Shrugged.” The New York Times, 28 Nov. 1999,

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 www.nytimes.com/1999/11/28/opinion/liberties-trump-shrugged.html.

Rose, Mike. Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education. The New
Press, 2012.

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