You’ve heard about the “graying” of America. You’ve likely heard of the “browning” of America.
But have you ever considered what America will be like when it is both brown and gray?
We could be in for a rough ride, James Johnson, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina, predicted at a conference of NSBA’s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) in Austin, Texas, last week.
“This country . . . every state, every urban school district is in the midst of an unprecedented demographic transformation,” he said. “Buckle your seatbelts.”
Johnson wasn’t saying a growing minority population—or an aging population—is, in and of itself, a bad thing. But both trends, acting in unison, will have an immense impact on the nation.
And, if policymakers aren’t preparing for what’s to come, the nation will be the worse for it.
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