As not only a school principal, but also a dad of daughters, the concept of career readiness for our next generation hits home. Already firmly at the crossroads of a rapidly-evolving landscape in simply defining college and career readiness entering the fourth industrial revolution, the skills we’re identifying as preparedness are becoming outdated as quickly as they’re developed. While each of the previous three industrial revolutions have produced advancement and evolutions throughout society, they have also resulted in greater discrepancies heavily impacting marginalized groups, especially women.

Let’s take a look at the numbers now and also into the crystal ball of the not-too-distant future workforce:

Kate Anderson says in “A Woman’s Place Is In The (Fourth Industrial) Revolution”: “In the United States, women comprise just 35% of undergraduates earning degrees in STEM. And even within that minority, census data shows only one in seven women who have a STEM degree are actually employed in that field.” We clearly have an opportunity (read: responsibility) to ensure a true college and career readiness effort starts at the elementary-school level and targets STEAM-related avenues, specifically for our young women and girls.

We didn’t just parachute into these current circumstances, either. The discrepancies in our education system date back to its original inception in the mid-19th century. The product of one Horace Mann after a trip to Prussia inspired the development of the Common School. “Common because it was for everyone, the kids of the farmer, the kids of the potter, and the kids of the local shopkeeper” (Godin, 2014). A school system for all wasn’t initially as easy of a sell as you might think, as kids in the mid-1850s made up a prominent section of the labor force. It wasn’t until a compromise was made with industrialists that the idea began to gain traction across our country — a compromise that would set the very foundation for which our school system is currently set upon, informing everything from the roles of educators to the bell schedule to even the arrangement of desks.

“Part of the rationale used to sell this major transformation to industrialists was the idea that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instruction isn’t a coincidence — it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child-labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they’re told.” (Godin, 2014)

And it worked.