The best escalator to opportunity in America is education. But a new study underscores that the escalator is broken.

在美国，机遇的最佳升降机是教育。但从一项新研究可以明显看出，升降机坏了。

We expect each generation to do better, but, currently, more young American men have less education (29 percent) than their parents than have more education (20 percent).

我们希望每一代人都能更好，然而，当前一代美国年轻人中，受教育程度低于其父母的（29%）要比高于其父母的（20%）更多。

Among young Americans whose parents didn’t graduate from high school, only 5 percent make it through college themselves. In other rich countries, the figure is 23 percent.

在父母没有读完高中的年轻美国人中，自己能够读完大学的只有5%。而在其他富有国家，这个数字是23%。

The United States is devoting billions of dollars to compete with Russia militarily, but maybe we should try to compete educationally. Russia now has the largest percentage of adults with a university education of any industrialized country — a position once held by the United States, although we’re plunging¹ in that roster².

美国在军事上投入数以十亿计的美元与俄罗斯抗衡，但也许我们应该在教育上比一比。俄罗斯成年人中拥有大学学历的比例是所有工业化国家里最高的——这个位置曾经属于美国，然而现在我们在这项排名里一直往下掉。

These figures come from the annual survey of education from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., and it should be a shock to Americans.

这些数字来自经济合作与发展组织（Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development，简称OECD）的年度教育调查报告，美国人应该为此感到震惊。

A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility³. But the American dream seems to have emigrated because many countries do better than the United States in educational mobility, according to the O.E.C.D. study.

美国梦的一个基本元素是平等的受教育机会，这是社会和经济流动性的润滑剂。然而这个梦似乎已经移居海外，因为从OECD研究来看，很多国家在教育流动性上做的比美国好。

As recently as 2000, the United States still ranked second in the share of the population with a college degree. Now we have dropped to fifth. Among 25-to-34-year-olds — a glimpse of how we will rank in the future — we rank 12th, while once-impoverished South Korea tops the list.

一直到2000年时，美国持大学学历者在人口中的占比还排在第二位。现在已经跌到第五。在25到34岁这个年龄段——这一项指标可以反映我们将来的排名——我们排在第12位，曾经贫困的韩国现在是第一。

A new Pew survey finds that Americans consider the greatest threat to our country to be the growing gap between the rich and poor. Yet we have constructed an education system, dependent on local property taxes, that provides great schools for the rich kids in the suburbs who need the least help, and broken, dangerous schools for inner-city children who desperately⁴ need a helping⁵ hand. Too often, America’s education system amplifies⁶ not opportunity but inequality.

皮尤(Pew)的一项新调查发现，美国人认为对我们国家构成最大威胁的是贫富差距的拉大。然而我们建立的这个教育系统，以地方物业税为依托，给市郊那些最不需要帮助的富人孩子提供了最好的学校，给内城那些最需要拉一把的孩子提供了不能正常运转的危险学校。美国的教育系统，有太多时候是在放大不平等，而不是放大机遇。

My dad was a World War II refugee who fled Ukraine and Romania and eventually made his way to France. He spoke⁷ perfect French, and Paris would have been a natural place to settle. But he felt that France was stratified and would offer little opportunity to a penniless Eastern European refugee, or even to his children a generation later, so he set out for the United States. He didn’t speak English, but, on arrival in 1951, he bought a copy of the Sunday edition of The New York Times and began to teach himself — and then he worked his way through Reed College and the University of Chicago, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a university professor.

我父亲是二战难民，他逃离乌克兰和罗马尼亚，辗转到了法国。他的法语毫无瑕疵，照理说应该在巴黎安顿下来。然而他认为法国的阶级过于分明，对一文不名的东欧难民来说很难有机会，甚至他的孩子那一辈也不行，所以他就去了美国。他不会英语，但1951年来到这里时，他买了一份《纽约时报》周日版，开始自学——然后他靠自己的努力上了里德学院(Reed College)和芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)，拿到了一个博士学位，成为了一名大学教授。

He rode the American dream to success; so did his only child. But while he was right in 1951 to bet on opportunity in America rather than Europe, these days he would perhaps be wrong. Researchers find economic and educational mobility are now greater in Europe than in America.

他是乘着美国梦走向成功的；他唯一的孩子也是。他在1951年赌美国的机会比欧洲好，这是赌对了，然而放在今天，他就是错的。研究人员发现，欧洲现在的经济和教育流动性要强于美国。

That’s particularly sad because, as my Times colleague Eduardo Porter noted⁸ last month, egalitarian education used to be America’s strong suit. European countries excelled at first-rate education for the elites⁹, but the United States led the way in mass education.

让人尤为伤感的是，正如时报同仁爱德华多·波特(Eduardo Porter)上月提到的，平等主义教育曾经是美国的优势。欧洲国家擅长为精英提供一流教育，但是美国的大众教育领先。

By the mid-1800s, most American states provided a free elementary education to the great majority of white children. In contrast, as late as 1870, only 2 percent of British 14-year-olds were in school.

到了19世纪中期，美国大多数州都会向绝大多数的白人孩子提供免费的小学教育。与此形成鲜明对比的是，英国直到1870年也只有2%的14岁孩子在读书。

Then the United States was the first major country, in the 1930s, in which a majority of children attended high school. By contrast, as late as 1957, only 9 percent of 17-year-olds in Britain were in school.

而美国还是第一个实现让多数孩子上高中的国家，那是在20世纪30年代。相比之下，一直到1957年，英国的17岁孩子只有9%在读书。

Until the 1970s, we were pre-eminent in mass education, and Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University argue powerfully that this was the secret to America’s economic rise. Then we blew it, and the latest O.E.C.D. report underscores how the rest of the world is eclipsing us.

我们在大众教育上的绝对优势一直保持到20世纪70年代，哈佛大学(Harvard University)的克劳迪亚·戈尔丁(Claudia Goldin)和劳伦斯·卡茨(Lawrence Katz)曾掷地有声地说，这是美国经济崛起的秘诀。然后我们搞砸了，最新一期OECD报告显示我们正在被世界甩在身后。

In effect, the United States has become 19th-century Britain: We provide superb education for elites, but we falter¹⁰ at mass education.

美国实际上变成了19世纪的英国：向精英提供一流教育，大众教育却衰败不堪。

In particular, we fail at early education. Across the O.E.C.D., an average of 70 percent of 3-year-olds are enrolled¹¹ in education programs. In the United States, it’s 38 percent.

我们在早期教育上尤为失败。在OECD报告中，参加了教育项目的3岁孩子平均达70%。美国是38%。

In some quarters, there’s a perception that American teachers are lazy. But the O.E.C.D. report indicates that American teachers work far longer hours than their counterparts abroad. Yet American teachers earn 68 percent as much as the average American college-educated worker, while the O.E.C.D. average is 88 percent.

在某些地方，美国的教师给人留下了懒惰的印象。但从OECD报告看，美国教师的工作时间远比外国同行要长。而美国教师的收入是美国大学学历工作者平均收入的68%，OECD报告中的平均值则是88%。

Fixing the education system is the civil rights challenge of our era. A starting point is to embrace an ethos that was born in America but is now an expatriate: that we owe all children a fair start in life in the form of access to an education escalator.

解决教育系统的问题是我们这个时代的民权挑战。出发点应该是宣弘一种生于美国但已经背井离乡的道德观：我们应该通过教育升降机，给所有孩子的人生一个公平的起点。

Let’s fix the escalator.

我们要修好这台升降机。