Tennessee will require local education districts to implement and instruct students on a success sequence to high school students. This standardized pathway of life choices will be taught as students are making key decisions, entering critical relationships, and choosing a vocation and career.
What student doesn’t want to succeed? What parent doesn’t what their child to succeed?
And what is this “Success Sequence” that will be required as mandatory instruction beginning July 1, 2026?
It’s an approach to ordering one’s choices in a sequence that impacts three of society’s key institutions: education, work, and marriage.
Research has demonstrated that those who follow this sequence experience completely different outcomes than those individuals who reorder the sequence of certain choices.
The success sequence requires that an individual first complete high school and pursues a postsecondary degree, via apprenticeships and internships, or by completing college or university. Second, the individual enters the workforce. Third, this individual enters a stable relationship and marries before the fourth step, which is to have a child.
In research analysis, ninety-five percent of Millennials–those who are currently aged 29-44 years old, regardless of race–who didn’t grow up with both biological parents, yet chose to follow this sequence of steps, are not considered “poor” as adults. The overwhelming majority of Black Millennials (96%) and Hispanic Millennials(97%) who followed this sequence are not “poor” in their mid-30s (ages 32 to 38).
The legislation passed the Tennessee House 73-20 and the Senate, 25-5, along partisan lines.
Studies and research have been ongoing and showing consistent results at the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Family Studies, and the Brookings Institute. Specifically, the Institute for Research on Poverty featured researcher Brad Wilcox who has definitively demonstrated that those who did not follow this success sequence of decision-making were significantly more likely to experience poverty.
Of the Millennial adults who reordered their life choices and did not follow this proven sequence, 53% of these young adults are living in poverty. In dramatic contrast, only 3% of the young adults who did follow the success sequence in ordering their life choices are poor.
As you read various media reports about this new requirement in Tennessee high schools, a common word is used by many to describe this law. The instructional idea is deemed “controversial” by those who oppose this approach.
Why? No one is perfect. Wanting the best, teaching the best, and encouraging the best for our students should not threaten us at all. The new legislation gives parents an opportunity to talk with their students and to acknowledge that life is often unpredictable and requires flexibility. However, there seems to be a proven path of success. Try to tread that path!