Re: “Undereducated, unemployed youth could be an opportunity or a new cost” (Dec. 10, Opinion):
Cities maintain roads and bridges because reliability matters. We judge them by whether they hold under pressure. Yet we rarely apply that same standard to the path from school to adulthood.
The editorial board is right to highlight the nearly 100,000 young people in Washington who are neither in school nor working. Disconnection like this does not happen overnight. It grows when the systems around young people are never built or maintained to be reliable.
Having served as a superintendent, I know how much weight is placed on graduation rates. They matter. But a diploma does not tell a young person what to do on Monday. When our responsibility ends at the ceremony, transitions become fragile.
Talent grows inside systems. When those systems break apart, it leaks.
Washington does not lack pathways. It lacks the relationships and navigation systems that help young people transition from school to opportunities as adults.
Maintenance matters. Talent is already here. What Washington must build is an infrastructure strong enough to carry it forward.
Keisha Scarlett, Ed.D., Seattle
