Jan Resseger notices that Ohio is the latest state to try to legislate teaching of the “Success Sequence,” and she’s pretty sure that’s not a great idea. Reposted with permission.
The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 156 last October. The bill, if passed by the Ohio House and signed by the governor, would mandate that public schools teach what, in overtly paternalistic language, used to be called “middle class values.”
The bill prescribes that all public schools teach students they can avoid poverty in adulthood by following “the Success Sequence” — graduate from high school; get a full-time job; get married; and only then, have children.
Last fall, the Ohio Capital Journal‘s Megan Henry quoted the president of the Ohio Senate Education Committee, Andy Brenner (R-Delaware) defending the bill: “We’ve got an obligation to try to break that poverty cycle by giving these kids positive intervention that will help them want to improve their lives and grow… And if we don’t do it, we’re going to continue to see the same old thing over and over again.”
My own Ohio Senator, Kent Smith (D-Euclid) criticized the whole idea behind the Success Sequence: “If we were serious about fighting poverty and being a help to Ohio’s working poor, we could be providing paycheck protections or working family support… Poverty is not a failure of personal responsibility, it is a failure of public policy priorities. And in that respect, Senate Bill 156 will not change poverty in Ohio for those who need it the most.”
I haven’t devoted much coverage in this blog to Ohio’s exhausting passage of one culture war bill after another, because I have been far more concerned about the recent state budget that continues undermining public schools across our state by failing to enact the new Fair School Funding Plan, by cutting income taxes, and by increasing the state’s expenditure on private school vouchers. Evie Blad’s coverage for Education Week of Success Sequence bills being considered or passed by a number of states made me realize, however, that these bills are being widely pursued. Blad tracks the bills:
“Conservative legislators in at least eight states want to require schools to teach students that earning at least a high school diploma, securing a full-time job, and getting married before having children—in that order—will help them avoid poverty as adults… Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, signed a bill March 5 that will require schools to teach about the success sequence as part of the state’s ‘good citizenship’ curriculum. Tennessee passed a similar law last year, and Utah lawmakers passed a resolution promoting the success sequence in 2024. The Ohio Senate passed a success sequence bill last October, and lawmakers in Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas have introduced legislation.”
Perhaps the source of all the “success sequence” activity in state legislatures today is a November, 2023, model Success Sequence resolution from the Heritage Foundation published. It is designed for passage by a state or local board of education: “Be it resolved, that in order to help students to avoid poverty in adulthood, succeed in the workplace, have healthy family relationships, and flourish in life, the [state school board] requires public school boards in [state} to adopt instructional materials, including a high school course that includes evidence using the best research methods available describing the positive personal and societal outcomes associated with the ‘success sequence’….”
The flawed assumptions that underpin these bills are that students actually have control of a mass of variables in their lives and that a comfortable life is the reward for living by defined rules and never making a mistake. The promoters of the Success Sequence don’t seem to notice, for example, that one’s capacity to find a job that pays a living wage depends on the jobs available in the local economy. Blad quotes some profound critics who raise other concerns about these laws: “The sequence ‘oversimplifies poverty, which isn’t tied to a few life choices,’ former Louisiana teacher of the year Chris Dier said in a video criticizing Louisiana’s bill. ‘It’s tied to education, housing, healthcare, wages… Reducing all of that to ‘just follow these three steps’ is misinformed and harmful.” And Indiana state senator Shelli Yoder declared in a committee hearing: “Teaching about marriage and childbearing in a ‘good citizenship’ curriculum is ‘fraught with shame.’ ” Blad explores distortions and misreading of academic studies that are presented by proponents of these laws to justify passing them.
Beth Macy’s 2025 book, Paper Girl, features high school teachers trying to help and support adolescents coping with deep poverty, homelessness, and parents who are addicted to opioids in a small Ohio town. In some cases high school students are raising younger siblings. The problems for the students Macy portrays are complicated and beyond their capacity to control.
Planned Parenthood of Ohio specifically identified the biases embedded in Ohio’s bill in a message addressed to the Ohio Senate: “Every student deserves the opportunity to pursue a life that is meaningful to them. For some, that may include having children; for others, it may not. Likewise, marital status does not determine a person’s success—whether one is single, married, with children, or without, all life paths are valid and valuable. Rather than addressing urgent issues such as Ohio’s maternal and infant mortality crisis or improving economic outcomes for families, lawmakers are choosing instead to impose conservative religious values on all students, regardless of their own beliefs or backgrounds.”
In Ohio, a press release from the far-right Center for Christian Virtue offers support for Senate Bill 156: “The goal of this legislation is simple. When we invest in building strong children, we can save some of the expense of rebuilding broken adults… Encouraging education, hard work, and the importance of marriage and family helps reduce the risk of ever falling into poverty, and a whole host of other negative outcomes, in the first place.”
Supporters of the adoption of the Success Sequence by legislatures and school boards often quote statistical studies aimed at proving that living according to the prescribed steps will ensure a prosperous life. Blad quotes the critics, who “argue that the research is descriptive, not cause-and-effect; it can only show a link between the sequence and economic outcomes, not a proof point. Treating it as a prescription for success overlooks the structural barriers, like growing up in poverty, that make it more difficult for some students to succeed in life… Critics including school boards in states weighing success sequence bills… say teaching it in schools would serve to blame individuals for systemic challenges they face, and that reinforcing narrow family norms could stigmatize students from single-parent homes or those who don’t desire marriage or parenthood.”