Alabama public school students will soon be taught that their best chance to avoid poverty is a three-pronged formula: Obtain, at a minimum, a high school diploma, find full-time employment and delay parenthood until marriage.
Called the “success sequence,” the idea has been around for a few decades and is now working its way into law in several states, most recently Alabama. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the legislation earlier this month. It was sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.
“I think it’s incredibly important to make sure young people know that if they do these three things, the research shows — it’s not somebody’s opinion — the research shows that there’s a 97% chance that they will not be in poverty 10 years later,” Orr told Alabama Daily News.
“Unfortunately, a lot of young people don’t learn these things from parents or guardians or grow up in environments where some or all these things aren’t taught and aren’t modeled. And that’s not to cast stones at a single mom or somebody rearing their children today, not at all. It’s looking prospectively at that 16, 17 or 18 year old today.”
The new law requires that beginning in the 2026-27 school year, all students will receive instruction in the success sequence at least twice before they graduate from high school.
Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, carried the bill in the House.
“The success sequence bill is data driven and common sense bipartisan legislation that is sound policy,” Garrett told ADN. “Many students who are currently in economically disadvantaged circumstances will benefit from awareness and exposure to success sequence principles.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation has model success sequence language and several other states this year considered similar bills.
Alabama’s law cleared the Senate and House unanimously and without opposition.
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, praised Orr for bring the bill.
“This to me is big,” Smitherman said in a Senate committee hearing.
Tennessee lawmakers approved a bill this year too, though there was some opposition from Democrats who said the instruction could indoctrinate students about matters that should be personal choices while making students who have a single parent feel bad about themselves, The Associated Press reported.
Other criticism of the plan says it doesn’t take into account barriers, including poverty, already in some young people’s lives.
About 15.6% of Alabamians live in poverty, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
About one in five Alabama children live in poverty, and one in 10 live in extreme poverty, living with families making 50% or less of the Federal Poverty Level, which in 2022 was $13,875 a year.
Orr said that the success sequence steps could help all Alabama students.
“They are all attainable to a young person with a little self discipline and grit,” Orr said. “Getting a job is attainable. Getting a high school diploma, even if you get a GED, is attainable. Delaying parenthood is attainable.”
The Alabama State Board of Education is to develop standards and model curriculum to be adopted by local school systems. The curriculum will need to pull from a few research publications on the sequence, including “The Millennial Success Sequence” by Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox.
Wang and Wilcox have said that the vast 96% of Black and 97% of Hispanic Millennials who followed this sequence are not poor in their mid-30s. That’s also the case for 94% of Millennials who grew up in lower-income families and 95% of those who grew up in non-intact families.
In an April House Education Policy Committee, Rep. Van Smith, R-Billingsley, spoke of the importance of the success sequence message and said the instruction should focus on middle school and early high school.
“By the time they’re seniors, they know everything and it’s very difficult to tell them anything,” Smith, a former high school principal, said.