new castle, del. <u+2014> the nearby factory that made dodge durangos closed eight years ago. the general motors boxwood road plant <u+2014> open since 1947 <u+2014> closed the next year. so did the oil refinery in delaware city. in the span of a year during the financial crisis, once-prosperous northern delaware had to confront post-industrial devastation. it<u+2019>s the sort of devastation that now has the country<u+2019>s attention. donald trump won the presidency with huge margins in places left behind. he lost the popular vote, but won 26 of the 30 lowest-income states, including the old powerhouses of pennsylvania, ohio and michigan. these places are stuck in what i call the great american stagnation. tens of millions of people have experienced scant progress for decades. median net worth is lower than in the 1980s, and middle-aged whites, shockingly, aren<u+2019>t living as long as they used to. ending this stagnation is the central political problem of our age: it fuels trumpian anger and makes every other societal problem harder to solve. i came here to new castle looking for a jolt of hope after the terribly dispiriting presidential campaign. i came to see one of the more promising attacks on the great american stagnation. in the wake of the financial crisis, delaware<u+2019>s new governor, jack markell, and other officials did obvious things, like using stimulus money to stem the damage and even managing to reopen the refinery. but markell, who<u+2019>d run as an insurgent democrat, understood that nostalgia alone wouldn<u+2019>t help families pay their bills. so he began looking for ways both to save old jobs and to create new ones. his answer wasn<u+2019>t original <u+2014> but that<u+2019>s o.k., because it was right. in his almost eight years in office, he has made his no. 1 priority lifting the skills of delaware<u+2019>s citizens. he worked on traditional education, expanding high-quality pre-k and helping low-income teenagers go to college. and he worked on what academic researchers like robert schwartz call <u+201c>the forgotten half<u+201d> : the many students who won<u+2019>t graduate from college but who also need strong skills to find decent jobs. their struggles are a major reason that america<u+2019>s work force is no longer considered the world<u+2019>s most highly skilled . it<u+2019>s too early for a final verdict in the state, but the signs are encouraging. high school graduation rates have jumped. educational attainment is above average <u+2014> as are incomes. the jobless rate is 4.3 percent. new castle, on the delaware river, is telling, because it has focused on skills while staying true to its blue-collar roots. it<u+2019>s home to the state<u+2019>s largest high school, william penn, which has long educated the children of workers from general motors and the refinery. by 2011 , enrollment had fallen by nearly 20 percent as students fled for other options. <u+201c>people came out and said, <u+2018>the high school is not serving the community,<u+2019><u+201d> the former principal, jeffrey menzer, told me. <u+201c>they wanted more career opportunities, more hands-on stuff.<u+201d> markell makes a similar point: <u+201c>a lot of kids who drop out of high school <u+2014> they don<u+2019>t drop out because they<u+2019>re not intelligent. they drop out because they think what they<u+2019>re learning is not relevant to the rest of their lives.<u+201d> william penn reorganized itself into 20 different <u+201c>majors,<u+201d> and every student must pick one, be it manufacturing, computer science or agriculture. (the state has a broader version of the program, called pathways to prosperity.) one goal, of course, is to prepare students for a career. when william penn tried to start a nursing major, the state pushed back, pointing to a glut of such programs <u+2014> and the school started a medical-diagnostics major instead. but having a major can also help students who don<u+2019>t know what they want to be when they grow up. it connects book learning to real life. it can help launch them into college or a certificate program and avoid the epidemic of academic drift. no wonder enrollment at william penn has improved. kiara roach, a senior, told me that she didn<u+2019>t care about her grades, or do very well, until she became passionate about cooking. (as she told me this, i was enjoying a moist pork sandwich in a teacher cafe she helps run.) mike rodriguez, who one day hopes to start a heating-and-cooling business, said: <u+201c>i get bored in class. i like standing up and working on something.<u+201d> jacob sobolesky, a junior, told me: <u+201c>there<u+2019>s only so much you can learn from word of mouth.<u+201d> many people in new castle, not to mention the industrial midwest, feel a deep cultural connection to craftsmanship <u+2014> to making things and working with their hands. they<u+2019>re not inspired by working in cubicles or comfortable offices. at the same time, they can<u+2019>t simply do as previous generations did and graduate from high school into a good job. they can<u+2019>t bring back yesterday<u+2019>s economy. they need blue-collar skill-building to thrive. the country has failed to provide nearly enough of that skill-building, and we<u+2019>re all living with the consequences. you can join me on twitter (@dleonhardt) and facebook . i am also writing a daily email newsletter until the election and invite you to subscribe . follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion). a version of this op-ed appears in print on november 22, 2016, on page a31 of the new york edition with the headline: a jolt of blue-collar hope. today's paper | subscribe
a jolt of blue-collar hope
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