Miller Op-Ed: No single policy fixes a generation disrupted by COVID. Here’s what might.

Photo by: Matthew Hatcher for NJ.com

By Cody Miller for NJ.com

Editor’s note: This essay is part of NJ.com’s “COVID Generation” opinion project, exploring how the pandemic disrupted education, work, mental health and the transition to adulthood, and what this generation needs now.

When the pandemic hit, I was working in higher education and serving on a local board of education. I watched schools and colleges move to remote instruction almost overnight. Students had to learn entirely through technology, and many suffered significant learning loss.

But they missed more than lessons. They also missed the chance to connect with people.

Five years later, the warning signs show up in the data. Chronic absenteeism in our schools has climbed. Last fall, first-time undergraduate enrollment in New Jersey dropped, so fewer young people are on the path to a degree.

Many of these problems existed before COVID, including behavioral health challenges. The pandemic acted as an accelerant. It brought those problems to the surface and made all of them worse.

This isn’t just a cellphone problem or a social media problem.

It’s a combination of factors. Students spent much of those years on screens instead of with other people. Then we put them back in classrooms and asked everyone to talk face to face. They’d grown comfortable at home, and many never got to learn the social and soft skills they need to succeed in school and in life.

That’s why state Sen. Paul Moriarty and I worked to get cellphones out of the classroom. I’ve also sponsored legislation to research and make recommendations regarding addictive social media behaviors among children and adolescents and examine strategies, including warning labels and mandatory disclaimers, to reduce those behaviors.

We have to look at limiting the harmful algorithms that keep young people doom-scrolling.

A bridge to opportunity

No single silver-bullet policy will fix this. It will take interventions that get students back on track.

New Jersey has a lot of great resources. We have community colleges, four-year schools, and trades and apprenticeship programs with our local unions. We have the tools to help everyone affected by COVID. What we don’t have is a concerted effort, a structure and a system. Right now, there’s no point person someone can go to for the help they need.

That’s why I’ve started working on legislation called New Jersey Bridge to Opportunity.

Anyone whose education or career was disrupted by the pandemic would have access to a navigator. That navigator would connect them with employment opportunities and help them build their soft skills and write a résumé.

If they want to take college courses and be on a campus, the navigator would help them do that, too. Some may need remedial courses to get back on track or a grounding in basic finance to better understand why financial management is so important to success.

Community colleges are uniquely positioned to anchor this work because they already partner with businesses, industry and employers.

Start the path earlier

We also need to plan for careers much sooner. Some students arrive at college because they don’t know what else to do. They earned their diplomas but never had a game plan. Career exploration should start in middle school, where students can be introduced to the skilled trades and professions while there’s still time to choose.

College isn’t the only route. Certificate programs, union apprenticeships and the utility industry all lead to jobs that pay a decent wage. K-12 education, higher education and workforce development operate as disjointed systems. We have to join them, so students see their path mapped out from the day they start school.

I come from a first-generation, low- to moderate-income family. I was a Pell Grant, TAG, and EOF student and received free school meals.

Wealthier families could pay for tutoring and private schools. In communities like Camden, state aid still isn’t enough. Students tell me they had to leave their communities because there was no economic mobility there – and they wanted more options for career success and advancement.

These students need a lot of handholding.

Over the next five years, New Jersey has to get much better at finding them, meeting them where they are, and connecting them with education, training and a career. We’ve already lost some students to behavioral health challenges and to suicide.

Some people just want to be heard. They want help, and they don’t know where to turn.

Bridge to Opportunity would give them a place to go and let them know resources exist for them. We have to focus on this lost generation and give them what they need to succeed.

Cody Miller, a Democrat, is an assemblyman representing the 4th Legislative District and serves on the Assembly Higher Education Committee.