DISCUSSION

Office of the Superintendent of Schools MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Rockville, Maryland

November 10, 2015

MEMORANDUM To: Members of the Board of Education From: Larry A. Bowers, Interim Superintendent of Schools Subject: Career Readiness Executive Summary By the year 2020, almost two-thirds of jobs, and nearly all high-paying jobs, will require postsecondary education or training; a high school diploma is no longer enough. Most states and school systems are working toward the goal of ensuring that students are “college- and career-ready;” however, what we mean by career ready is not always clear, and the supply of quality career technical education, or Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs, has not kept pace with demand. Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has been very clear that the expectations for postsecondary education and career readiness are the same. What may be different is the avenue a student takes to fulfill his or her graduation requirements and the pathway taken after graduation. As part of preparing students for the next stages in their careers, the MCPS vision for 21st century college or career readiness is to increase the number of options a student has upon graduation. Success upon high school graduation will be defined as—

• enrolling in credit-bearing college courses with no need for remediation, • earning a living wage, • entering the armed forces, • completing technical school with experiential learning, • receiving industry training and certification, • earning an associate’s or bachelor’s degree after graduation, and • earning college credits or an associate’s degree before graduation.

In alignment with our strategic plan, and Core Strategy I, Academic Rigor and Culturally Proficient Instruction, we are developing a Career Readiness Improvement Plan to ensure that all students are identifying their interests, establishing personal goals, and exploring postsecondary opportunities including career options (Attachment A). Additionally, the plan is designed to support more students who are exploring CTE options to achieve completer status,

Members of the Board of Education 2 November 10, 2015 earn certification or licensure qualifying them for immediate job opportunities, and graduate college and career ready. According to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, 27 percent of students earning a vocational license or certificate earn more than a worker with a bachelor’s degree. Background Beginning this year, the Maryland General Assembly’s College and Career Readiness Completion Act of 2013 goes into effect. This legislation requires all diploma-bound students to take a college and career readiness assessment in English and mathematics by the end of Grade 11. MCPS will use the SAT, ACT, or ACCUPLACER as our readiness assessment. In addition, a student may demonstrate college and career readiness through a certification or licensure in one of the CTE pathways. Students who score below the designated levels will be provided with extended learning opportunities by the school after Grade 11 and will need to demonstrate their college/career readiness on one of the assessments during their senior year. According to the Maryland State Department of Education’s (MSDE) Instructional Assessment and Professional Learning Unit (2015), more Maryland students are graduating high school than ever before. However, many students are not prepared for college-level work or to compete for skilled jobs after graduation. Of the 3,500 2014 MCPS graduates who attend Montgomery College, approximately 68.7 percent needed some form of remedial education. According to MSDE, if a student takes two or more remedial classes, there is a high probability that he or she will drop out of Montgomery College. It is noteworthy that, for the first time, the Montgomery County Council is developing a program to support unemployed 24- to 26-year-old young adults. In 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated there is a 14.3 percent unemployment rate among youth ages 16 to 24, yet there are 4.8 million job openings in our economy, the highest number of job vacancies since January 2001. The rate of unemployment among Montgomery County’s 16- to 24-year-old youth is aligned with these findings, at approximately 14.6 percent. As more students graduate from high school, the number of positions requiring a high school diploma or less continue to decrease while the number of employment opportunities requiring at least postsecondary training or industrial certification has more than doubled. Twenty percent of high school graduates nationwide seeking to enter the armed forces did not pass the academic portion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test (Education Trust, 2010). Today’s global, knowledge-based economy requires a better educated workforce than that of previous generations. With the percentage of employment opportunities by education attainment projected by 2020 to be less than half of what it was 40 years ago, the unskilled workforce will struggle to maintain employment positions and financial stability. In other words, the high unemployment rate among youth ages 16 to 24 is not by coincidence; it is a consequence of a job market where the

Members of the Board of Education 3 November 10, 2015 opportunities for employment in unskilled positions are shrinking. We need to close the “skills gap” and ensure our children graduate college and career ready to succeed. There are empirical and evidence based data to support school systems that switch to dual educational systems, where students attend college preparatory classes and learn a technical trade. Germany overhauled its educational system to promote additional technical educational programs. As a result of the new focus, Mr. Harold L. Sirkin, senior partner, The Boston Consulting Group, and professor, Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, reports the following in Bloomberg Businessweek (2013):

As a result of the system, few Germans find themselves unemployable. The youth unemployment rate for example is just 7.7 percent in February, well below that of the U.S. (16.2 percent excluding those who have dropped out of the labor market) and the euro zone as a whole (23.9 percent). Overall, unemployment in Germany was just 5.4 percent in February.

Current Status of CTE Programs in MCPS MCPS has had a long history of offering CTE opportunities in all of our high schools. Through the years, program options have changed to maintain pace with the job market both nationally and locally. Students may enroll in one course, take a complement of courses, or fulfill a completer or pathway of courses. MCPS provides 34 CTE Programs of Study or Career Pathways, including the following:

• Academy of Health Professions and Biosciences • Academy of Information Technology, Programming • Accounting • Advanced Engineering (Project Lead The Way) • Automotive Technology • Broadcast Media TV • CISCO Academy • Construction and Development, Electricity • Early Child Development • Environmental, Agricultural, and Natural Resources • Hospitality Management • Justice, Law, and Society

Completion of a program may provide students with opportunities to take Advanced Placement (AP) courses, receive college credit, participate in internships, or earn certification or licensure in some professions. What we are discovering, however, is that although our students are enrolling in CTE courses, very few are achieving completer status; therefore, the number of students earning certification or licensure is less than we would expect.

Members of the Board of Education 4 November 10, 2015

Number of Programs Concentrator Completer

34 960 782 Note: Data for the graduating Class of 2015. In addition to the many programs of study that exist in all MCPS comprehensive high schools, Thomas Edison High School of Technology provides a unique opportunity for high school students. Students enrolled in any comprehensive high school may apply for enrollment in one of Thomas Edison High School of Technology’s 17 CTE programs. Students attend Thomas Edison High School of Technology daily for three class periods and earn credits toward graduation while maintaining a strong relationship with their neighborhood high school. In addition to offering valuable professional certifications and licenses, many programs are articulated with colleges and universities for college credit. More than 70 percent of Thomas Edison High School of Technology students plan to attend colleges, universities, and technical schools. Many graduates continue on their same career pathways and/or use their skills to help fund postsecondary education expenses. Improvement Plan In alignment with our strategic plan, and Core Strategy I, Academic Rigor and Culturally Proficient Instruction, we are developing a Career Readiness Improvement Plan to ensure that all students are identifying their interests, establishing personal goals, and exploring postsecondary opportunities including career options. Additionally, the plan is designed to support more students who are exploring CTE options to achieve completer status, earn certification or licensure qualifying them for immediate job opportunities, and graduate college and career ready. In 2014, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) established a Career Readiness Task Force, comprising state school chiefs, postsecondary leaders, business leaders, and career-technical education experts, to analyze leading career preparation practices. According to the CCSSO report, 55 percent of job seekers surveyed cited gaps in their education for their lack of skills, while 42 percent attributed the problem to a lack of knowledge about potential career opportunities. Furthermore, 25 percent of those job seekers surveyed reported receiving career path counseling in high school; but 41 percent said they wished they had received more career guidance. The task force published a report in November 2014, Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students, with recommendations for improving career readiness (Attachment B). Our improvement plan is designed around the following three recommendations highlighted in the report of the CCSSO Task Force on improving career readiness:

1. Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in defining the pathways and skills most essential in today’s economy.

2. Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential.

Members of the Board of Education 5 November 10, 2015

3. Make career readiness matter to schools and students by prioritizing it in accountability systems.

Although MCPS has a strong and well-established relationship with local business partners, we will expand our work to coordinate efforts across all groups; ensure that our career pathways are relevant to the 21st century economy and the local job market; and identify the career readiness employability/professionalism skills all students need to be successful in their postsecondary endeavors. Through surveys and focus groups, we are working with our business and higher education partners to identify the employability/professionalism skills that they consider essential for our students whether they engage in postsecondary or technical education or enter the world of work. Study and instruction in these skills will be embedded in the secondary curriculum for all students. The plan includes a review of all CTE programs to assess enrollment and gather student input on the rigor and relevancy of pathways. Those pathways that are underutilized will be deleted and those more relevant to today’s economy may be added. We will emphasize the role of school counselors to promote and encourage students to explore career options, achieve completer status, and earn certification or licensure that guarantees job options and opportunities. Through collaboration and professional development we will work to ensure that school counselors share the vision that career ready is college ready and that CTE pathways are rigorous and relevant options for students. We also intend to be more strategic and systematic in working with students beginning in middle school to promote goal setting, career exploration, and the attainment of career readiness employability/professionalism skills. Included in our improvement plan is a set of metrics that will ensure that students in Grades 6–12 have the opportunities and acquire the career readiness skills they need to be successful in the 21st century workforce (Attachment C). We plan to augment our use of Naviance, a college and career readiness software provider that partners with high schools and other K–12 institutions, to provide students with college planning and career assessment tools, and by expanding it to middle school students. Naviance has 15 lesson plans per grade level with a pre- and post-assessment per lesson. Goal setting, interview skills, and completing a five-year plan are examples of lessons that students may complete using Naviance. We recognize it is critical for our students to see themselves in their future. Our goal is to offer our students more options to attain college and career readiness through more rigorous and relevant high school experiences. In support of making career readiness meaningful to students, we are developing a Career Readiness website that includes the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job categories and a Career Interest Inventory. The website will describe each CTE program including relevant AP and International Baccalaureate courses. Videos describing employment opportunities, job descriptions, and student testimonials will be linked to CTE programs.

Members of the Board of Education 6 November 10, 2015 Next Steps For decades, the work of preparing students for careers was left to vocational or CTE programs. The implication was that only some students needed this type of preparation and it was distinct and separate from the academic pathway. Historically, in schools across the country, these programs were not academically challenging and were targeted to students—often poor and minority students—who were not deemed capable of pursuing postsecondary education. Worse still, a significant number of these programs prepared students for low-paying or dead-end jobs, with little opportunity for upward mobility in the labor market. The result was that the students who could most benefit from higher expectations were held back by the very programs designed to help them. MCPS has undertaken considerable efforts to strengthen its programs of study to be academically rigorous by adding advanced level courses, establishing articulation agreements aligned with college curriculum, and working with local business and corporations to maintain industry standards. We must break down the barriers that have traditionally separated these programs and challenge the negative assumptions associated with career preparation programs: “career ready” means “postsecondary ready.” That means establishing rigorous standards for all students, paying serious attention to the future labor market our young people will face, and preparing them with the appropriate knowledge and skills to be successful in their future endeavors. We have made significant progress with this work in MCPS, but we have a long way to go. As we implement the Career Readiness Improvement Plan, we will be more deliberate about teaching the professionalism and employability skills our business partners are indicating that our students need to be successful in the world of work. We also will be intentional in our efforts to begin college and career planning in middle schools with metrics to create accountability for staff and to ensure consistent learning opportunities for students. Finally, we will implement a strategic communication plan to effectively inform our students, parents/guardians, staff, and community that CTE programs benefit all students and result in continuation to postsecondary education, earning meaningful credentials, and developing transferable skills to meet the needs of an ever-changing job market. LAB:MVN:EJL:mec Attachments

Attachment A

Actions that appear in bold in Year 1 are in process as of fall 2015. 1

Career Readiness Improvement Plan

Recommendation 1*: Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in defining the pathways and skills most essential in today’s economy. *Taken from Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students, A Report of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Task Force on Improving Career Readiness (November 2014)

(Action Steps from Report of the CCSSO Task Force on Improving Career Readiness) • Enlist the employer community as

a lead partner in identifying high-demand, high-skill industry sectors that are most important to the state’s economy so career pathways can be aligned with those opportunities.

• Engage the employer community in designing career pathways in secondary schools that develop the specific knowledge and skills needed for entry-level work within high-demand, high-skill industries.

• Establish a structured process through which the education and business sectors come together to establish priorities and design pathways.

Year 1 (2015–2016)

Year 2 (2016–2017)

Year 3 (2017–2018)

Evidence of Completion

• Identify specific areas of focus for career readiness collaboration between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and business partners.

• Align the interests and supports of the business partners for the Metrics of Career Readiness Success as they relate to employability skills and internship opportunities.

• Survey local business partners to determine the level of satisfaction with their involvement in the MCPS Career Readiness Improvement Plan and the plan’s effectiveness in achieving its goals.

• Results of survey of business partners.

• Define career readiness with input from business community, current research, and state and national definitions.

• Satisfaction by business partners and other appropriate stakeholders with career readiness definition.

• Establish a survey and conduct focus groups with Montgomery County Business Roundtable for Education and other business stakeholders to determine career readiness employability/ professionalism skills for the 21st century workforce.

• Create a framework for the employability/professionalism skills with definitions, components, and when it will be taught, like the Curriculum 2.0 Thinking and Academic Success Skills.

• Finalize the career readiness employability/professionalism framework including measures.

• Begin to embed the career readiness employability/ professionalism skills into the secondary curriculum.

• Provide professional development opportunities for school-based leadership teams on career readiness employability/ professionalism skills.

• Continue to embed career readiness employability/ professionalism skills into the secondary curriculum.

• Continue professional development to secondary school leadership teams on the career readiness employability/ professionalism skills.

• Evidence of inclusion of career readiness employability/ professionalism skills in secondary curriculum.

• Evaluation of career readiness employability/professionalism skills professional learning.

• Evidence of business partner input on the framework.

• Complete review of current Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs and determine which programs are most utilized or underutilized based on relevancy to labor market and analysis of program data, including enrollment, student voice, and program completion.

• Continue to add or delete CTE programs identified through program review: including relevancy to labor market and analysis of program data, as well as enrollment, student voice, and program completion.

• Review CTE course data for changes to enrollees, concentrators, completers, and certifications.

• Increases in CTE enrollees, concentrators, completers, and certifications.

• Business partner input and feedback on program implementation and elimination.

Attachment A

Actions that appear in bold in Year 1 are in process as of fall 2015. 2

Recommendation 2: Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential.

• Require that all career

programming is organized within pathways that culminate with a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential that opens doors to high-skill, high-demand jobs.

• Raise the level of rigor in career programs by including both a college-ready academic core and a technical core that spans secondary and postsecondary systems and meets industry needs.

• Work with the employer community to dramatically expand work-based learning opportunities to expose students to career options and connect what they’re learning in the classroom with the world of work.

• Strengthen and expand career guidance and support services, beginning in middle school, and seek out non-traditional partners to help provide these supports.

• Use state funding and program

approval processes to scale up the pathways in greatest demand and scale down or phase out programs that do not lead to credentials of value.

• Build the capacity of educators to

more effectively engage students in high-quality, career-relevant instruction through deeper engagement with business and industry.

Year 1 (2015–2016)

Year 2 (2016–2017)

Year 3 (2017–2018)

Evidence of Completion

• Complete a review of current CTE programs and assess utilization of programs.

• Determine which programs to add or delete based on relevancy to labor market and analysis of program data, including enrollment, student voice, and program completion.

• Begin to eliminate or add CTE programs based on relevancy to labor market and data analysis.

• Review CTE courses for changes in enrollees, concentrators, completers, and certifications.

• Findings from CTE program review.

• Establish the Career Readiness Metrics of Success.

• Establish infrastructure to collect data.

• Develop rollout for data collection.

• Begin implementation of Metrics of Career Readiness Success including professional development for administrators, counselors, and other school-based leaders.

• Review Metrics of Career Readiness Success data.

• Metrics of Career Readiness Success data.

• Consult with the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Division of Career and College Readiness to identify additional courses that qualify for technology education graduation requirements, thus allowing more students to receive completer status.

• Align more CTE programs to fulfill technology education requirements, thus enabling more students to receive certifications.

• Allow CTE concentrator students to have access to the Online Pathway to Graduation (OPTG) program.

• Review results of work with MSDE regarding courses that qualify for technology education credit.

• Monitor data on students receiving CTE certification.

• Number of courses eligible for technology education credit.

• Data on students earning CTE certification.

• Develop and implement a plan for school counselors to increase enrollment in the CTE pathways.

• Review and revise school counselor plan to increase enrollment in CTE pathways.

• Assess fidelity of implementation of school counselor plan to increase CTE enrollment.

• Enrollment in CTE courses, concentrators, and completers.

• Establish employability/ professionalism skills in collaboration with School Counseling Services Unit.

• Develop a framework for the employability/professionalism skills.

• Develop and provide professional development on the skills.

• Establish electronic student registration to the Naviance program to replace the current postsecondary scannable registration form.

• Implement the middle school employability/professionalism skills.

• Assess the number of Grades 6 and 7 students with Naviance accounts and how/how much they are utilized.

• Monitor the implementation of the employability/ professionalism skills.

• Number of Grades 6 and 7 students with Naviance accounts and utilization.

Attachment A

Actions that appear in bold in Year 1 are in process as of fall 2015. 3

Recommendation 2: Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential.

(Continued) Year 1

(2015–2016) Year 2

(2016–2017) Year 3

(2017–2018) Evidence of Completion

• Establish a partnership between the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs and the Office of Human Resources and Development to review the CTE teacher hiring process and assess CTE teacher certification and program needs including industry standards.

• Create a set of Look Fors to collect data on student experiences in CTE courses (e.g., engagement, relevance, etc.).

• Survey principals and CTE teachers to assess effectiveness of Look Fors.

• Student survey results of engagement in and relevance of CTE courses.

• Design a summer camp program for middle school students to experience different career pathway offerings.

• Implement middle school summer camp to experience career pathway offerings.

• Review data on summer camp experience and revise program, as appropriate, and continue to offer.

• Number of Grade 9 students who attended summer camp enrolled in career pathway offerings.

• Determine the “as is state” of project-based learning in MCPS and create a plan to build the capacity of administrators and teachers to design project-based learning experiences.

• Develop and implement professional learning opportunities on project-based learning for secondary administrators and teachers.

• Create network for teachers using project-based learning to observe and learn effective practices.

• Continued professional learning and networking opportunities for teachers using project-based learning.

• Number of courses including project-based learning opportunity.

• Initiate work with Montgomery College and The Universities at Shady Grove to strengthen articulation agreements and pathway programs.

• Explore college course credit options for high school CTE pathway programs.

• Identify pathway program implementation options.

• Identify opportunities within current partnership programs to expand options for students to strengthen their preparation for postsecondary studies.

• Implement new articulation agreements and/or pathway programs at the postsecondary level.

• Increase in the number of articulation agreements and pathway programs that are connected to high school CTE programs.

Attachment A

Actions that appear in bold in Year 1 are in process as of fall 2015. 4

Recommendation 3: Make career readiness matter to schools and students by prioritizing it in accountability systems.

• Make career readiness a higher

priority in school rating and accountability systems.

• Adapt graduations requirements and scholarship criteria to give student credit for meeting rigorous career readiness indicators.

Year 1 (2015–2016)

Year 2 (2016–2017)

Year 3 (2017–2018)

Evidence of Completion

• Promote increased enrollment in and completion of career pathways through a strategic marketing campaign and formalized articulation processes.

• Promote increased completion of industry certification, particularly through communication related to the College and Career Readiness Designation process.

• Have Grade 8 students complete a five-year plan and revisit plan periodically to confirm efforts to complete career pathways.

• Delete the Bridges program and expand Naviance to be used in Grades 6–12 to streamline the career exploratory process.

• Expand the Naviance Road Trip Nation program and the Gudelsky Institute’s Career Coach program to increase student comprehension of the relevancy of their coursework.

• Increase the timeframe during which students can take classes at Thomas Edison High School of Technology (e.g., extended-day classes), to expand enrollment and student opportunity.

• Establish more formalized collection process for industry certification data.

• Monitor Grade 8 students’ completion of five-year plan over three years.

• Assess number and usage of Naviance accounts established for Grades 6 and 7 students over three years.

• Survey students’ perceptions of the relevancy of their coursework.

• Monitor student enrollment at Thomas Edison High School of Technology over three years.

• Monitor completion of industry certifications.

• Number of Grade 8 students with five-year plans.

• Number of Naviance accounts for Grades 6 and 7 students.

• Results of student survey on relevancy of coursework.

• Student enrollment data on enrollment at Thomas Edison High School of Technology.

• Monitor completion of industry certifications.

• Prepare a one-stop shop website that starts with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Categories and a Career Interest Inventory and includes the following:

o Describe each CTE program including Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate courses. Have each CTE program include as many AP courses and/or internships as appropriate.

o Link CTE programs with videos describing employment opportunities, job descriptions, and student testimonials.

• Collect student, parent, school-based staff, and business partner feedback on website and other marketing materials.

• Make changes to website and marketing materials based on feedback.

• Consider endorsements or recognitions based on completion of industry certifications.

• Update website and marketing materials based on programmatic changes, stakeholder feedback, and industry trends/changes.

• Modifications to the Career Readiness website and other marketing materials.

Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students

November 2014

A Report of the CCSSO Task Force on Improving Career Readiness

ATTACHMENT B

THE COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nonpartisan, nationwide, membership organization of

public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of

Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity, and five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions. CCSSO provides

leadership, advocacy, and technical assistance on major educational issues. The Council seeks member consensus

on major educational issues and expresses their views to civic and professional organizations, federal agencies,

Congress, and the public.

Members of CCSSO Task Force on Improving Career Readiness:

Terry Holliday, Task Force Chair, Commissioner of Education, Kentucky

Chris Minnich, Executive Director, CCSSO

June Atkinson, State Superintendent of Schools, North Carolina

Tony Evers, State Superintendent of Schools, Wisconsin

Lillian Lowery, State Superintendent of Schools, Maryland

John White, State Superintendent of Education, Louisiana

Brenda Cassellius, Commissioner of Education, Minnesota

John Barge, State Superintendent of Schools, Georgia

John Fischer, Deputy Secretary of Education, Vermont

Eric Spencer, Director of College and Career Readiness Bureau, New Mexico

Scott Ralls, President of the Community College System, North Carolina

Scott Stump, Dean of Career Technical Education of the Community College System, Colorado

Gene Bottoms, Senior Vice President, Southern Regional Education Board

Kim Green, Executive Director, National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium

Tim Lawrence, Executive Director, Skills USA

John Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, Educate Texas

Gary Hoachlander, President, ConnectEd: California Center for College and Career

Maura Banta, Director, Global Citizenship Initiatives in Education, IBM

Jason Tyszko, Senior Director, Policy, US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Education and Workforce

Chauncy Lennon, Managing Director, Global Philanthropy, JP Morgan Chase

Matt Gandal, Task Force Facilitator, President, Education Strategy Group

One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-1431

Phone (202) 336-7000 Fax (202) 408-8072 www.ccsso.org

Copyright ©2014 by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington, DC, All rights reserved.

1Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ExECUTIVE SUMMARy .............................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION: .......................................................................................................................5

The urgent need to transform our system

RECOMMENDATION 1: ............................................................................................................8

Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in defining the pathways

and skills most essential in today’s economy

RECOMMENDATION 2: ..........................................................................................................11

Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling

all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential

RECOMMENDATION 3: ..........................................................................................................18

Make career readiness matter to schools and students by prioritizing it in

accountability systems

CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................................21

2 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

ExECuTivE SummAry

Our nation’s secondary schools must provide young people with the knowledge, skills, and experiences that will enable them to lead productive and fulfilling lives. In today’s economy, being “well prepared” means continuing education or training beyond high school. By the year 2020, almost two thirds of jobs, and nearly all high paying jobs, will require postsecondary education or training.1 A high school diploma is simply no longer enough.

State leaders across the country are addressing this by adopting more challenging, meaningful K-12 standards that will propel students toward college and career success. Their efforts to implement college- and career-ready standards must continue, but work remains to ensure that the educational experiences of young people in our schools are sufficiently rigorous and relevant to prepare them for their futures and close the skills gap evident within our labor markets.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, the equivalent of 9.3 million Americans classified as unemployed2. More troubling still, 14.3 percent of our 16-24 year olds are unemployed,3 yet there remain 4.8 million job openings in our economy, the highest number of job vacancies since January of 2001.4 According to a recent survey, 54% of American companies report having openings for which they cannot find qualified workers.5 Our education system is clearly not keeping up with the skills demands of our knowledge-based economy.

Most states and school systems are working toward the goal of getting their students “college- and career-ready,” but what we mean by “career-ready” is not always clear, and the supply of quality career-technical education programs has not kept pace with demand.

Career education in too many of our secondary schools reflects an outdated model that tolerates low expectations and is often misaligned with the evolving needs of the current labor market. The result: an increasingly pronounced skills gap that plagues American businesses as they struggle to find qualified workers and dead ends for our students who rely on career preparation programs as their ticket into the middle class.

CCSSO launched its Career Readiness Task Force in the spring of 2014 to bring a renewed focus to this issue. The task force – composed of state school chiefs, postsecondary leaders, business leaders, and career-technical education experts – analyzed leading career preparation practices in the U.S. and abroad and identified specific policies states must adopt to dramatically improve the preparation of their high school graduates.

1 Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl. “Recovery: Job Growth and Education Requirements through 2020”,

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (June, 2013).2 U.S. Department of Labor. “The Employment Situation, September 2014”, Bureau of Labor Statistics

(Oct., 2014).3 U.S. Department of Labor. “TED: youth Employment and Unemployment, July 2014”, Bureau of Labor

Statistics (August 19, 2014).4 U.S. Department of Labor. “Job Openings and Labor Turnover, August 2014”, Bureau of Labor Statistics

(Oct., 2014).5 CareerBuilder commissioned study, conducted online by Harris Poll, on hard-to-fill jobs, (June 2013).

3Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

This report outlines a complete set of actions states must take to transform their schools’ approach to career readiness. We highlight here the three drivers of change needed within states’ systems:

First, states must make their high school programs more responsive to the labor market by enlisting the employer community as a lead partner. While some career preparation programs in our secondary schools today are excellent, others are not effective at preparing young people for the well-paying jobs available in today’s economy. This means dead ends for students and job vacancies for employers. States need a new “demand-driven” system for determining which programs and pathways warrant continued development and investment, and which should be scaled down or phased out; a system that places greater value on preparing students for high-paying, in-demand jobs. This will require a new partnership with the employer community, one that gives them the responsibility for identifying high-demand, high-skill industries and developing a suite of authentic work-based learning experiences so that schools can align career preparation with the specific needs of business and industry.

Second, states must significantly raise the threshold for quality career pathways in secondary schools. States must develop and make available to all students an array of high quality career pathways spanning secondary and postsecondary levels that combine rigorous academics with an applied curriculum and work-based learning opportunities, supported by focused career planning and guidance. These pathways can no longer be treated as the “less rigorous” option for high school students. High quality career pathways must be every bit as rigorous as the traditional “college-prep” track. They must result in credentials that are valued by employers and aligned with current and emerging market needs so that completing a pathway opens real doors of opportunity in the job market. States must use their funding and accountability models to prioritize pathways that focus on high-demand, high-skill industries and phase out programs that no longer lead to meaningful credentials and careers.

Third, states must make career preparation matter to schools and students. What’s measured gets valued by schools, but most state accountability systems today don’t measure or value career readiness. According to a recent report by Achieve and the National Association of State Directors of CTE Consortium (NASDCTEc), just over half of states publicly report any career-focused readiness measures in their school report cards; only a handful actually make these indicators count in their school improvement metrics.6 Given the critical role that accountability systems play in signaling priorities and driving resources, states must expand these metrics to emphasize readiness for both college and careers. States also need to re-examine their high school graduation requirements and scholarship programs to consider whether there are opportunities to give credit for career-focused courses and credentials.

States that embrace these changes and put policies and incentives in place to help their districts and schools move in this direction will close the skills gap and better prepare their students for postsecondary success. State chiefs must lead this change, but they can only succeed in partnership with business, governors, and postsecondary leaders. Transforming school systems to make career readiness a priority will require each of these sectors to work together in unprecedented ways. We must step out of our individual comfort zones and work together on behalf of our students.

6 Achieve and the National Association of State Directors of CTE Consortium, “Making Career Readiness

Count”, May, 2014.

4 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

Recommendation #1: enlist the employer community as a lead partner in defining the pathways and skills most essential in today’s economy.

1. Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in identifying the high-demand, high-skill industry sectors that are most important to the state’s economy so career pathways can be aligned with those opportunities.

2. Engage the employer community in designing career pathways in secondary schools that develop the specific knowledge and skills needed for entry-level work within high-demand, high-skill industries.

3. Establish a structured process through which the education and business sectors come together to establish priorities and design pathways.

Recommendation #2: Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential.

4. Require that all career programming is organized within pathways that culminate with a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential that opens doors to high-skill, high-demand jobs.

5. Raise the level of rigor in career programs by including both a college-ready academic core and a technical core that spans secondary and postsecondary systems and meets industry expectations.

6. Work with the employer community to dramatically expand work-based learning opportunities to expose students to career options and connect what they’re learning in the classroom with the world of work.

7. Strengthen and expand career guidance and support services, beginning in middle school, and seek out non-traditional partners to help provide these supports.

8. Use state funding and program approval processes to scale up the pathways in greatest demand and scale down or phase out programs that do not lead to credentials of value.

9. Build the capacity of educators to more effectively engage students in high-quality, career-relevant instruction through deeper engagement with business and industry.

Recommendation #3: make career readiness matter to schools and students by prioritizing it in accountability systems.

10. Make career readiness a higher priority in school rating and accountability systems.

11. Adapt graduation requirements and scholarship criteria to give students credit for meeting rigorous career readiness indicators.

CCSSO Task Force Recommendations to Improve Career Readiness

5Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

iNTrOduCTiON: The urgent need to transform our system

At a time when the American economy is demanding a more highly-educated workforce with a sophisticated and transferable set of skills, our schools are doing a very poor job of being responsive. And we’re letting our students down in the process. Not all of the underlying causes of this fall in the purview of schools and state chiefs alone, but the impact on the economy and on the lives of our students is unacceptable. We must transform our career preparation system.

Despite our recent efforts to raise K-12 academic standards to a college- and career-ready level, much work remains to ensure those standards lead to well-rounded programs that prepare students – all students – to make a successful transition from our schools to the world of work. In too many of our secondary schools, career education remains committed to an outdated model that tolerates low expectations and is often misaligned with the evolving needs of the labor market. The result: an increasingly pronounced skills gap that plagues American businesses as they struggle to find qualified workers and dead ends for our students who rely on career preparation programs as their ticket into the middle class.

Closing the Skills GapThe most recent unemployment data further illustrates the harsh impact of this skills gap on our economy. In October of 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced an overall unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, with 9.3 million Americans classified as unemployed7. Within those figures lies a stubborn 14.3 percent unemployment rate among youth ages 16-24.8 At the same time, there remain 4.8 million job openings in our economy, the highest number of job vacancies since January of 2001.9 This mismatch between skilled workers and skill sets needed by employers becomes more troubling with the projection that the gap will grow to exceed 5 million job openings by 2020.10

Furthermore, according to a 2013 survey conducted by Harris Poll, 54% of American companies report having vacancies for which they cannot find qualified workers.11 In a related study, more than half (55%) of the job seekers surveyed blame gaps in their education for their lack of skills, while 42% attribute the problem to a lack of knowledge about potential career opportunities. Furthermore, only 25% of those job seekers reported receiving career path counseling in high school; 41% said they wished they had received more career guidance.12

The solution is to better educate all students so they are prepared to advance in their postsecondary

7 U.S. Department of Labor. “The Employment Situation – September 2014”, Bureau of Labor Statistics

(October 3, 2014).8 U.S. Department of Labor. “TED: youth Employment and Unemployment, July 2014”, Bureau of Labor

Statistics (August 19, 2014).9 U.S. Department of Labor. “Job Openings and Labor Turnover – August 2014”, Bureau of Labor Statistics

(October 7, 2014).10 Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl. “Recovery: Job Growth and Education Requirements through 2020”,

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (June, 2013).11 CareerBuilder commissioned study, conducted online by Harris Poll, on hard-to-fill jobs, (June 2013).12 CareerBuilder, “The Shocking Truth about the Skills Gap”, http://careerbuildercommunications.com/

skillsgapstudy2014, (released March, 2014).

6 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

education and training after high school. Additionally, we must provide students with a much richer set of experiences in high school that expose different career options, help make better connections between classroom learning and professional application, and support planning for the future.

We must start by recognizing that as important as the high school experience is for students, a high school diploma is no longer enough. While young adults for several generations have been able to secure long-term, livable wage work after high school, those jobs have become largely obsolete in the modern economy and have been replaced by positions demanding higher level skills. By 2020, nearly two-thirds of all jobs will require postsecondary education or training beyond high school, with 35% requiring a bachelor’s degree and another 30% requiring an associate’s degree or some college training.13 These “middle skills jobs” in particular—those requiring an additional degree or credential but not a four-year degree—must become the target for many career preparation programs in our high schools.

Ending the Stigma and Isolation of Career EducationFor decades, the work of preparing students for careers was left to vocational or career and technical education programs. The implication was that only some students needed this type of preparation and it was distinct and separate from the academic track. And in many of our schools, these programs have historically been less academically challenging and targeted at students—often poor and minority students—who were not deemed capable of pursuing postsecondary education. Worse still, a significant number of these programs prepared students for low-paying or dead end jobs, with little opportunity for upward mobility in the labor market. The result: the students who could most benefit from higher expectations were held back by the very programs designed to help them.

This has begun to change. Some states and districts are redefining their career and technical education programs and pathways with a clear eye toward enabling students to continue their education and training to earn meaningful credentials and develop transferable skills. But the pace and scale of this change is insufficient.

State leaders must pay greater attention to their career and technical programs as an integral part of their states’ economic development strategies. But their leadership on career readiness must span beyond career and technical education. Improving career preparation and giving students the ability to pursue further education and training as part of a pathway to a career is the job of all educators.

We must break down the barriers that have traditionally separated these programs and shed the stigma associated with career preparation programs: “career ready” means postsecondary ready. That means establishing rigorous standards for all students and paying serious attention to the future labor market our young people will face.

CCSSO’s Task ForceIn response to this clear call to action, CCSSO has engaged experts from across the nation to collectively examine high-impact strategies to improve the readiness of our students for postsecondary education and training opportunities and, ultimately, productive, fulfilling careers.

13 Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl. “Recovery: Job Growth and Education Requirements through 2020”,

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (June, 2013).

7Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

This task force – comprised of state school chiefs, postsecondary and career technical education leaders, national education experts, and business leaders – analyzed leading career preparation efforts in the U.S. and abroad, and identified high leverage policies states must adopt to transform their systems. The task force’s recommendations fall under three main drivers of change:

1. Enlist the employer community as a lead partner to refocus and retool schools’ career preparation efforts to ensure that they are responsive to the labor market and effectively prepare all students for the expectations of the 21st century workplace.

2. Raise the bar for the quality of career preparation programs to ensure that all programs are embedded in pathways that are tightly aligned with the needs of the labor market and culminate in a meaningful postsecondary credential or an industry certification in a high-skill, high-demand field.

3. Make career preparation matter to schools and students by incorporating career readiness indicators into accountability systems and incentivizing students to earn postsecondary or industry certification credentials in high-skill, high-demand fields.

The recommendations set forth in this report are intended to guide states in their planning and decision making processes to transform career and technical education and prepare all students for career success. This report does not attempt to prescribe how states should approach these recommendations, and instead brings them to life by profiling leading practices that demonstrate the various strategies in action. It is the totality of these strategies—not the selective implementation of a few – that will result in significantly better outcomes for our children and our economic prosperity.

It is important to acknowledge that state chiefs cannot effectively lead this charge on their own. It will take the collective effort of key stakeholders – governors, business and postsecondary leaders, and intermediary education organizations – in collaboration with state education officials to drive the transformation of our career preparation system. Fortunately, important efforts that complement the CCSSO task force recommendations are already underway.

• TheNationalGovernor’sAssociation(NGA)recentlysupported14stateswithgrantstohelp them align their education and training systems with the current and future needs of their state economies.

• TheU.S.ChamberofCommerceFoundationislaunchingatalentpipelineinitiativetohelpemployers more actively partner with their school systems to close the skills gap.

• TheSouthernRegionalEducationBoard(SREB)recentlyformedaCommissiononCareer and Technical Education to challenge state policymakers to strengthen career programming by forging strong partnerships between secondary schools, community colleges, and the private sector.

• ThePathwaystoProsperityNetwork,managedbyJobsfortheFuture,isworkingwithagroup of states to build stronger systems of career pathways for students.

Harnessing the synergy of these important efforts will dramatically increase the likelihood of success in preparing all of our students for success in the 21st century economy.

8 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

rECOmmENdATiON #1: Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in defining the pathways and skills most essential in today’s economy

There are currently a wide range of career preparation programs and pathways in our secondary schools. While some are excellent and effectively prepare young people for the livable wage jobs available in today’s economy, others are not as effective. This means dead ends for students and job vacancies for employers.

States need a new “demand-driven” system for determining which programs and pathways warrant continued development and investment, and which should be scaled down or phased out; a system that places greater value on preparing students for the high-paying, in-demand jobs of today and tomorrow.

Getting this right is critical to both our students and to the local economy. It will necessitate states and districts building a new and different relationship with the employer community to gain greater insight into which programs and pathways are most relevant and responsive to the needs of the job market. Success will require stronger feedback loops between employers and educators to adapt and improve career preparation programs. The business community must commit to provide the leadership and input necessary to align career preparation efforts of schools with the demands of the labor market.

State Action Steps:

1. Enlist the employer community as a lead partner in identifying the high-demand, high-skill industry sectors that are most important to the state’s economy so career pathways can be aligned with those opportunities.

The employer community has a vested interest in and an unparalleled understanding of workforce needs in states and regions. States must leverage this to create mechanisms that enable the employer community, statewide as well as within state regions, to identify the high-growth, high-skill jobs of today and tomorrow and ensure that career preparation programs and pathways are responsive to those needs. As a result, pathways must be driven by the demands of the labor market and result in credentials that employers value.

This is already a priority for a number of states. Louisiana created the Workforce Investment Council to provide a mechanism for business leaders to set the direction for career pathways in the state. The Council, made up of business executives and education leaders in K-12 and higher education, uses workforce data to identify high-wage careers that offer the best opportunity for employment and continued education. From this information, they establish an approved list of credentials that districts can offer. The state board of education approves pathways designed regionally by teams of educators, businesses, and postsecondary faculty to meet these workforce needs.

North Carolina passed legislation in 2013 requiring school districts, employer communities, and workforce development entities to assess specific state and local workforce needs and identify industry certifications and credentials to meet those needs. The state then took a step further to require the Department of Commerce to annually update the State Board of Education on the high-need, high-skill occupations that exist within the state so that districts and schools can continually prioritize career pathways aligned with those needs.

9Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently launched a national Talent Pipeline Initiative to foster greater business leadership in setting the direction for career pathways in schools. Its work with state and local chambers of commerce will help them create new demand-driven partnerships with K-12 and postsecondary institutions to better utilize signals from employers that will inform decisions about career pathways, including competency credentialing and work-based learning opportunities tied to employer needs. The initiative also seeks to establish new information systems and, ultimately, performance metrics based on how graduates perform and persist in postsecondary programs and the workforce.

2. Engage the employer community in designing career pathways in secondary schools that develop the specific knowledge and skills needed for entry-level work within high-demand, high-skill industries.

Beyond identifying specific high-need, high-skill industries, states must forge ongoing collaborative relationships with the employer community to delve into the deeper work of designing demand-driven pathways. Together, they must identify and articulate the specific knowledge and skills needed for entry-level jobs in priority fields, design courses to grow that knowledge and skills within career pathways, and develop a suite of workplace learning experiences that provide real-world application of those skills to prepare students to successfully meet workplace expectations.

For example, Louisiana’s Jump Start Initiative provides competitive grants ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 to support the formation of regional teams of leaders from districts, postsecondary institutions, and workforce and economic development agencies to catalyze initiatives that lead students to earn state-approved industry credentials. Their efforts have resulted in new career readiness courses, teacher training, regional workplace exchanges, and career counseling for middle and high school students.

Indiana uses its 11 regional Works Councils to bring together more than 160 leaders from education, workforce, and business and industry to evaluate their education programs, assess the specific workforce needs of the employer community, and identify any possible gaps between the two. The Indiana General Assembly will award over $4 million in competitive grant funds to promising efforts to scale innovative and effective career studies curriculum models to overcome the skills gap.

3. Establish a structured process through which the education and business sectors come together to establish priorities and design pathways.

This more active and sustained role for the employer community will not happen organically. States must establish a forum to facilitate this change by creating a clear and compelling opportunity for business involvement, establishing standards for the skills and knowledge needed in high-demand, high-skill fields, and helping states and districts create and implement more ambitious and aligned career programming.

Accomplishing this will require leadership from the employer community. Companies are not accustomed to playing this role and many may not have the bandwidth to immediately engage with schools in this manner. This necessitates an important role for state and local chambers of commerce, workforce investment boards, and other institutions with the capacity to convene, aggregate, and facilitate across local businesses. Businesses will need to see the return on investment they can get from putting the time in to help shape the demand for career pathways.

10 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

Given the complexity of establishing, managing, and scaling school-to-business partnerships, states are beginning to turn to independent, third-party organizations to work closely with districts and schools to help translate workplace expectations into teaching and learning experiences. These intermediary organizations have the expertise, relationships, and bandwidth to convene schools, business, and postsecondary partners and are emerging as a promising solution. Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Kentucky have taken a regional approach that allows for aggregation of resources across regions. Local or regional intermediaries serve as conveners, brokers, and technical assistance providers to schools and employers. Intermediaries recruit business, nonprofit, and public employers and ensure that participating leaders understand and support the vision.

The National Academy Foundation is another example of an external organization that facilitates authentic partnerships between schools and businesses to provide underserved students in career academies with industry-focused courses, work-based learning experiences – including paid internships – and industry expertise, all in high-growth fields. Since its founding in 1982, the NAF has grown to a strong network of 565 academies serving over 70,000 students nationwide. The academies boast a graduation rate of 96%.

Bringing high quality career pathways to scale will require greater investments by states, districts, and the philanthropic community.14

14 Hoffman and Schwartz, “The Swiss Vocational

Education System”, National Center on Education

and the Economy, (2014).

European countries such as Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland have earned a reputation for having strong vocational education and training programs. These programs offer real lessons for the U.S. in building more meaningful connections between schools and employers. The Swiss system is a particularly strong model14; more than 70% of Swiss students participate in vocational education programs that result in gainful employment. Incidentally, Switzerland has the lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe.

Swiss secondary school programs within the vocational system are designed in close partnership with business and industry, and most students participate in paid apprenticeships that allow them to spend up to several days a week in a workplace. Swiss companies take an active role in the vocational education system, contributing time and resources, and hiring students as apprentices.

The Swiss system is truly a demand-driven model, with employers establishing the expectations for what young people need to know and be able to do. A robust network of business associations take responsibility for identifying the skills and knowledge young people need to succeed in different industries and those become the standards for school programs. The Swiss use labor market data to prioritize and shape vocational programs to ensure that pathways align with the needs of the economy.

The Swiss also place great emphasis on career exploration and counseling; students are exposed to employment opportunities and pathways at a younger age than they are in the U.S. (i.e. 14 years old). Despite starting students on career pathways at a younger age, the Swiss system is very permeable so students can change career paths and move between the vocational and academic pathways over time. This distinguishes it from other European systems.

Employer Engagement in Switzerland

11Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

rECOmmENdATiON #2: Set a higher bar for the quality of career preparation programs, enabling all students to earn a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential

There is a formidable need and a pressing opportunity to connect the work of our schools with the needs of our economy. As states seek ways to align education and the economy and make teaching more effective and meaningful for students, many have turned to career pathways as an effective method to accomplish both. Career pathways are organized around a particular program of study—such as architecture and construction, health sciences, or information technology—through partnerships between secondary and postsecondary schools and industry. This serves to connect the content, skills, and credentials students need to be prepared for high-skill, high-demand workforce opportunities.

While pathways are an effective mechanism to prepare students for the heightened demands of the 21st century workplace, they must result in real economic opportunities for kids. Thus, it is necessary to engage the business community in the program design process. Far too often, states and districts have turned to pathways that send students down a single short-sighted employment path rather than preparing them for a range of meaningful opportunities.

States must revamp their pathways in partnership with employers and postsecondary institutions to meet a higher bar of quality and relevance to the job market. They must ensure that pathways provide an accessible, delineated route to postsecondary and industry credentials in high-demand fields, and allow multiple “on ramps” and “off ramps” that enable students to change career paths and progress through successively higher levels of education and employment over time.

State Action Steps:

4. Require that all career programming is organized within pathways that culminate with a meaningful postsecondary degree or credential that opens doors to high-skill, high-demand jobs.

The conclusions drawn by labor economists are clear: a postsecondary or industry credential is fast becoming a pre-requisite for students to be competitive in the job market and earn meaningful employment in the 21st century economy. States must set a high bar to measure students’ career readiness in a universal language that employers understand and respect, beyond simply completing a pathway. Postsecondary and industry credentials meet that demand; they level the playing field among all potential employees – students and adults – and signal to employers that job candidates have the requisite skills and knowledge for particular high-need, high-skill positions.

However, there exists a great deal of variance in quality among postsecondary and industry credentials that are awarded across the country. Filtering through a complicated, unaligned credentialing system that spans government, professional associations, and private industry is not a simple task. Each awarding “institution” uses its own assessment and quality assurance methods to set a proficiency requirement for knowledge and skills to earn any type of credential, which range from a certificate, a professional license, or a degree, among others.

12 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

And while some credentials are widely valued within industries, others do not carry as much value. This means that states cannot simply align career pathways with any earned credential.

Instead, states must engage with the postsecondary and employer communities to establish an explicit process through which to differentiate less valuable credentials from those with real economic value. This process must be nimble and on-going to respond as labor market demands shift and the skills workers need rapidly evolve in changing occupational fields. Only those credentials that open meaningful doors of employment in high-skill, high-demand fields should be embedded into career pathways.

For example, Oregon requires that short-term certificate programs in their community colleges include content aligned with the knowledge and skills employees need for entry-level jobs in high-demand fields. To be responsive to the changing needs of those industries, the state has streamlined its program approval process to enable quick adjustments to course requirements.15

5. Raise the level of rigor in career programs by including both a college-ready academic core and a technical core that spans secondary and postsecondary systems and meets industry expectations.16

States must remove the stigma that suggests that career pathways or programs are a lower-level option that exists only for those students who won’t matriculate through college. As mentioned earlier, to gain access to most

15 Ganzglass, “Scaling Stackable Credentials:

Implications for Implementation and Policy”,

Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success,

(March, 2014).16 Hoachlander, “Linked Learning: Pathways to

College and Career”, ConnectEd: The California

Center for College and Career, (February, 2014).

California and Massachusetts have both made a significant commitment to redesigning career pathways in partnership with their business and education communities. These states are part of a larger network, called Pathways to Prosperity, that is providing support to states and districts developing grades 9-14 pathways that include many of the elements recommended in this report.

In California, a growing number of districts have embraced a high school transformation initiative known as Linked Learning that uses career pathways as its vehicle for wholesale change. This approach links rigorous academics, strong technical instruction, work-based learning, and personalized supports, all of which are aligned to 15 major industry sectors, to prepare students for postsecondary education and careers in high-demand, high-wage industry sectors as varied as engineering, arts and media, and health sciences.

An infusion of funding from the Career Pathways Trust Fund has incentivized local districts that educate approximately 1/3 of California’s public school students to re-orient themselves around career pathways. Delivery models include career academies, themed small learning communities, and themed small high schools, among others.

The results are promising: student attendance is up; participants are more likely to earn credits to graduate and earn admission to postsecondary institutions; they are more likely to enroll and persist in postsecondary opportunities; and pathway completers earn as much as $2,500 more annually in the 8 years after high school graduation than non-completers.16

To combat the skills gap in Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick established a Career Pathways Committee in 2012. The committee operates within the state’s Workforce Investment Board to align the efforts of K-12 and postsecondary systems as well as workforce and economic development authorities, and engage in a coordinated state effort to improve the readiness of young adults for the skills demands of business and industry.

Massachusetts has partnered extensively with its community colleges, workforce investment boards, and employer community to develop and offer demand-driven career pathways in healthcare, information technology, and advanced manufacturing that are tightly aligned with the labor market needs of 3 specific regions of the state. These partnerships prepare students to graduate from high school and earn credentials with labor market value, while helping them transition to the world of work, and preparing them to be successful in postsecondary education and training opportunities.

Career Pathway Profiles:

California and Massachusetts

13Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

livable wage jobs, students will need some education and training after high school. High quality career preparation programs will also need to prepare students to enter a 2- or 4-year college or a postsecondary training program. This raises the stakes for the quality and rigor of the curriculum and instruction in career pathways. To prepare all students for meaningful career options, career pathways must offer both a college-ready academic core that emphasizes real world application and a technical core that meets industry expectations and motivates students to pursue postsecondary education.

One effective way to meet these heightened expectations is through dual enrollment, especially in community or technical college programs, but also in four-year postsecondary institutions. By allowing students to take college-level courses in high school as part of robust career pathways, states integrate more challenging content and instruction into high school classrooms. Dual enrollment offers the added benefit of allowing students to earn credits toward a high school diploma and a postsecondary credential concurrently. This not only provides students with more meaningful employment options after high school, but can also shorten the time it takes to earn a college degree. States must encourage and facilitate dual enrollment by instituting a funding model that allows both high schools and colleges to claim apportionment for dually enrolled students. 1718

While covering the cost of dual enrollment courses is critical, there are other barriers that need to be overcome as well. The goal of dual enrollment is to increase the number of students who go on to earn a college credential, certificate, or degree in high-

17 Jobs for the Future, “Early College Design

Overview & FAQ”18 The Aspen Institute. Economic Opportunities

Program, “Model of Success: Pathways in

Technology Early College High School (P-TECH).”

Early College High Schools (ECHS) have been highly successful in motivating and supporting high school students to conquer challenging coursework while saving time and money by compressing the number of years it takes to earn either a 2-year degree or credit towards the first two years of a 4-year degree program. Research has found that students graduating from ECHS across the country in 2010 on average had a graduation rate of 84% compared with their district’s average graduation rate of 76%, and 77% of those students went on to enroll in some form of postsecondary education. 52% of ECHS graduates enrolled in a 4-year degree program.18

Through thoughtful, demand-driven, and focused collaboration, IBM, the New York City Department of Education, the City University of New York, and City Tech envisioned and created a robust and scalable partnership to improve high school STEM education and better prepare graduates for postsecondary opportunities. The first Pathways in Technology Early College High School – or P-TECH – opened in 2011 in Brooklyn, offering a system through which high school students receive integrated STEM instruction co-mingled with workplace readiness skills training supported with mentoring by IBM employees. The resulting grades 9-14 pathway enables students to graduate with both a high school diploma and an applied science associate’s degree and move to the front of the line for an entry-level job opportunity with IBM. In 2012, the program was replicated in four schools in Chicago and gained support from new industry partners, including Cisco, Motorola, and Verizon. Since then, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has designated $28M to support statewide replication of the model through a public-private partnership with IBM and 65 other employers – large and small – with the goal of opening 16 new P-TECH sites in 2014, one in each of the state’s economic development regions, and 10 more in 2015.19

Texas has also been a leader in accelerating student access to higher education through ECHS. There are 108 Early College High School campuses in Texas, representing a third of all such campuses in the U.S. and serving over 34,000 students statewide.  Students in these schools earn higher scores on standardized tests and complete advanced coursework at more than double the rate of the state average. In 2014, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) joined with two other state agencies responsible for higher education (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board) and workforce development (Texas Workforce Commission) in a tri-agency collaboration on an innovative dual credit/early college initiative, known as the Texas Career and Technical Early College High Schools, to provide high school students opportunities to graduate with both a high school diploma and a CTE/workforce credential. TEA and the other state agencies pooled $3M in public funds and awarded grants to four Early College High Schools with a CTE focus.  CTE-focused Early College High Schools let students graduate with a diploma and a workforce credential and are developed through local collaborations of colleges, school districts, and workforce boards to align regional workforce needs.

Early College High Schools

14 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

need, high-skill fields. To achieve this goal, states must take steps to ensure that credits earned through dual enrollment in high school transfer to a postsecondary institution. Ohio’s Board of Regents, for example, has established credit transfer and articulation agreements so that postsecondary institutions across the state will honor credits from dual enrollment courses regardless of where students attended high school. Additionally, North Carolina’s statewide Comprehensive Articulation Agreement requires that any North Carolina student who completes an associate’s degree program at a public community college is admitted to a state university with “junior year” status.

6. Work with the employer community to dramatically expand work-based learning opportunities to expose students to career options and connect what they’re learning in the classroom with the world of work.

Research has established that high school students who are exposed to real world work opportunities are more likely to graduate, persist in and complete postsecondary education,19 and secure higher-paying employment.20 yet very few of our young people ever experience meaningful work-based learning opportunities and career exposure while in high school.

States must partner with the employer community to establish authentic opportunities for students to participate in real world work settings that are aligned with priority industry sectors. Such opportunities may include job shadowing, internships, or apprenticeships. Each opportunity must be supported by consistent mentoring, including performance feedback, to support students as they are exposed to the workplace and develop important employability skills. Quality work-based learning experiences must allow students to explore various career options first-hand to determine their long-term interests. Clear connections must exist between what students are learning in high school classrooms and the skills needed to be successful in a work environment.

While a number of states have embarked upon creating policies to support work-based learning opportunities, few have successfully made them readily available to students at scale.

Massachusetts has pursued an initiative known as Connecting Activities that uses state funds specifically designated by the legislature to establish public-private partnerships through local workforce investment boards. These partnerships provide structured work-based learning experiences for students that facilitate their academic growth as well as their employability skill set. In Fy13, Massachusetts employers invested nearly $12 million in student internship wages for almost 10,000 students at over 3,500 work sites. Additionally, more than 1,600 employers sponsored career awareness events.21

In Wisconsin, the youth Apprenticeship Program offers an elective course of study to high school students to become apprentices as part of a statewide school-to-career initiative sponsored by the State Department of Workforce Development. Local employers are given the option of underwriting program costs. This program lasts one to two years and students learn

19 Andrew Sum and Don Gillis, “The Continued Crisis in Teen Employment in the U.S. and Massachusetts”,

Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Workforce Association

Board, (2012). 20 Kazis, “Remaking Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century: What Role for High School

Programs?”. Double the Numbers: A Jobs for the Future Initiative, (April 2005).21 Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, “Connecting Activities”.

15Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

employability and occupational skills, which are assessed by company mentors and aligned with specific industries to prepare them for entry-level work after they graduate from high school.

Getting business to participate in work-based learning can be a real challenge. There are several strategies that states should use, such as liability relief and payroll tax incentives, to encourage the employer community to create and provide sustained and relevant work-based learning opportunities for students. Missouri, for example, offers a youth Opportunity Tax Credit Program, which provides 50% tax credits to organizations to cover student wages through internships and apprenticeships. Arkansas provides incomes tax credits of up to $2,000 per youth engaged in either an apprenticeship or work-based learning program.

7. Strengthen and expand career guidance and support services, beginning in middle school, and seek out non-traditional partners to help provide these supports.

Many students do not receive any support to help them think about and evaluate their career opportunities. These students need information and counseling that help them make connections between what they learn in school and a long-term professional path. States must facilitate improved career guidance that empowers students to take ownership for planning and managing their career choices. Counseling services must help every student develop an individualized learning plan that includes career objectives, a program of study, degree and/or certificate objectives, and specific strategies to reach employers. Middle grades must be transformed to serve as the starting point of career preparation by helping students explore in a structured, focused way what they like to do, what skills they have, and how they can connect their schoolwork with potential future career pursuits.

Georgia’s new accountability system – the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) – requires that grade-specific career activities begin as early as elementary school to acquaint students with various professional opportunities in 17 designated career clusters. In middle school, the career exploration focus is tightened to assess students’ particular career interests and build those into individualized plans. Schools are required to administer two or more state-defined career-related assessments or inventories to students by the end of eighth grade, which are included in state reporting on the CCRPI. Other states are also requiring individualized student learning plans, some of which are described in the profile box on page 16.

Because schools often lack the counseling capacity and expertise to provide this level of sustained and personalized career guidance and exploration on their own – with counselors spread far too thin, often responsible for an exceptionally high caseload of students requiring support across a broad spectrum of needs – states and school systems must explore innovative solutions to providing this capacity. One strategy is to build partnerships with the business community and/or intermediary organizations that can be scaled across districts to effectively support diverse needs. Louisiana, for example has contracted with a non-profit organization called Career Compass to partner at scale with districts and provide high-quality career counseling to students.

In addition, career and technical student organizations (CTSOs) offer another high-quality option to support and focus students as they explore a range of meaningful career options. Spanning middle school through post-secondary education, CTSOs are an integral component of a well-developed career readiness system and act as a natural intermediary for career guidance and employer engagement. Aligned to major sectors of the economy,

16 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

CTSOs provide opportunities for students to engage in learning that meets employer needs, build leadership skills, and demonstrate competency through hands on, real-work challenges. 

For example, SkillsUSA, a national CTSO, actively engages employers through formal processes where employers create qualifications or standards for what students should know and be able to do in their particular field. SkillsUSA has systematized the way employers judge the work of students at regional, state, national, and international competitive events.22 23

8. Use state funding and program approval processes to scale up the pathways in greatest demand and scale down or phase out programs that do not lead to credentials of value.

States need to use all policy levers at their disposal—state funding mechanisms, program approval processes, and even the bully pulpit—to invest in and increase the number and quality of career pathways available to students. States must take advantage of their traditional funding streams, including dollars from the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, to support the development and implementation of “in-demand” pathways and programs. They should also consider using competitive funds to support and scale these pathways. The process must start by engaging employers in a meaningful way and looking carefully at the labor market in states and regions. Career pathways that lead to in-demand, well-paying jobs should be scaled up; pathways that don’t meet this criterion should be phased out or reconfigured to be more relevant.

22 Colorado’s Individual Career and Academic Plan

Policy Brief23 Utah State Office of Education, “Comprehensive

Counseling and Guidance Program.”

A number of states now require the development and use of

individual learning plans to help students plan, monitor, and

manage their path through high school graduation and into

postsecondary training and the world of work.

Wisconsin, for example, requires that every student have an

academic and career plan for 6th grade through high school

that includes real market information. Legislators have tied

student participation in part-time open enrollment to that

academic and career plan; students cannot participate unless

the course is aligned with their plan.

Legislation passed in Colorado in 2009 requires that all

students in grades 9-12 create and manage Individual Career

and Academic Plans (ICAPs). These dynamic plans must include

career planning, guidance, tracking, and a portfolio to guide

students’ course selection and performance expectations in

high school. In addition, ICAPs must: document students’

career exploration activity and establish postsecondary goals;

track students’ academic progress to those goals; examine

assessment scores; note student intentions for service

learning; record student applications to college or workplace

opportunities; note dual enrollment participation and results;

and record progress towards obtaining scholarships, loans,

grants, or work study awards.22

Similarly, Utah law requires that high school students create

and use a Student Education Occupation Plan (SEOP) as

part of their career pathway efforts to guide their selection

of high school courses and prepare for postsecondary

options. Their SEOP plan must include goals, short-term

and long-term plans, education and career goals, graduation

requirements and progress.23 Separately, the Utah Futures

Program consolidates all workforce preparation resources

into a single site to grant students one-stop access to their

academic record, postsecondary information, financial aid

records, and job applications. It provides assessments

and evaluation tools, assistance with job searches and

resume building, search tools for colleges and scholarship

opportunities, and information on Utah employers.

Career Guidance Profiles

17Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

California’s legislature set aside $500M in a competitive grant fund known as the “Career Pathways Trust Fund” to scale career pathways that focus on the state’s high-need, high-growth job sectors. The funding opportunity represents a major push to develop more robust approaches to work-based learning and encourage a higher degree of regional system building and collaboration around employer engagement.

New york has instituted a process by which career-technical education programs must demonstrate high quality in order to be re-approved. Teams comprised of district leaders and other education experts perform comprehensive site visits to assess program quality, looking for evidence of rigorous technical curriculum integrated with strong academics; faculty who are certified in their fields; the incorporation of technical assessments that meet industry expectations; and extensive student access to work-based learning opportunities.24 In Maryland, schools are required by the State Department of Education to assess and regularly identify and create improvement plans for the weakest 20 percent of their CTE programs.25 Only strong programs that are tightly aligned with skills demanded by high-need, high-wage fields will be re-approved.

9. Build the capacity of educators to more effectively engage students in high quality, career-relevant instruction through deeper engagement with business and industry.

States must recruit industry professionals with in-demand knowledge and skills to career and technical teaching positions in secondary schools. This will require removing policy barriers and streamlining certification procedures so that practitioners with sought after industry experience are not discouraged from secondary teaching opportunities. It will also require innovative solutions such as public-private partnerships to combat the wage disparity these industry practitioners often face. It is important that states and districts create programs to onboard and support these practitioners to help them successfully transition from their respective industries into the classroom.

For example, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) partnered to create, field-test, and validate a fast-track teacher induction program for alternatively certified teachers called Teaching to Lead that builds the capacity of career and technical teachers. The program encourages the use of strategies like project-based learning, work-based learning, and cooperative learning. After Mississippi adopted the model, the teacher attrition rate dropped from nearly 30 percent of all new teachers in 2008 to zero teachers in 2012.26

States must also provide opportunities for existing teachers to improve their skills and stay up to date with the changing needs of the labor market and the workplace. One way to accomplish this is by providing professional development opportunities as well as incentives for teachers to earn credentials in high-growth, high-demand sectors. In addition, states may incorporate industry credentials into certification requirements. Virginia, for example, recently passed legislation that requires all teachers seeking initial state certification with a career and technical endorsement to also hold an industry certification credential in the endorsement area.

24 Kazis, “Remaking Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century: What Role for High School

Programs?”. Double the Numbers: A Jobs for the Future Initiative, (April 2015).25 Ibid26 Massey, J. “Mississippi’s Lessons from Two Models to Improve Effectiveness and Attrition in New

Alternate Route Educators”. Presentation made to the Southern Regional Education Board’s Commission on

Career and Technical Education, Frankfort, Ky. (December, 2013)

18 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

It is not only career and technical teachers who need additional support; all secondary teachers need greater exposure to the workplace to build real-world applications into instruction and make the classroom experience more relevant and engaging for students. States must build the capacity of academic and technical teachers alike to integrate theory and practice; design and deliver standards-based, multidisciplinary projects; collaborate in team-teaching and make effective use of work-based learning; and make performance assessment a bigger part of student evaluation.

One strategy for building educator capacity is through externships that allow secondary career-technical and academic teachers to spend extended time in a workplace. The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) offers industry fellowships for secondary STEM teachers through its Center for Education Integrating Science, Math, and Computing (CEISMC). Since 1991, CEISMC – the K-12 education outreach arm of Georgia Tech that leverages the institution’s resources to improve STEM education – has provided paid summer internships or laboratory experiences in STEM fields to middle and high school teachers throughout Georgia.

rECOmmENdATiON #3: make career readiness matter to schools and students by prioritizing it in accountability systems

As states build more rigorous, relevant career pathway programs into secondary schools, they must create incentives for schools to provide these opportunities and for students to pursue them. In some school systems, the current reputation of career preparation programs is weak, still suffering the residual effects of years of lower expectations. As states and districts improve the quality of these programs and their alignment to the labor market, they will need to give them higher standing in their accountability systems so that both schools and students prioritize them.

State Action Steps:

10. Make career readiness a higher priority in school rating and accountability systems.

Career readiness is under-measured and undervalued in most current state accountability systems. The result: high schools in most states are not incentivized to make career readiness a priority. According to a recent report by Achieve and the National Association of State Directors of CTE Consortium (NASDCTEc), just over half of states publicly report any career-focused readiness measures in their school report cards and only a handful actually make these indicators count in their school improvement metrics.27

Given the critical role that accountability systems play in signaling priorities and driving funding and resources, states must find ways to expand these metrics to emphasize readiness for both college and careers. One of the most obvious ways is for states to set strong performance goals for all students that value career-focused courses, experiences, and credentials, and then back up those goals with specific indicators that are reported to the public and used in school and district

27 Achieve and the National Association of State Directors of CTE Consortium, “Making Career Readiness

Count”, (May, 2014).

19Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

accountability systems. Some of the most effective career-focused indicators include the number and percent of students who:

• Enrollinandcompletestate-approvedcareerpathways.

• Earnindustryrecognizedcredentialsinhigh-demand,high-skilljobsectors.

• Earncollegecreditthroughdualenrollmentopportunities.

• Earnanemployabilityorworkreadinesscertificate.

• Successfullycompletecompetency-basedopportunities,suchaswork-basedlearningandcapstone projects in high school.

• Enrollincollegeorfindgainfulemploymentinahigh-skill,high-demandworksectorwithin 18 months after high school graduation.

It is important for states to not only include these indicators in their reporting systems but also to give them weight in accountability formulas where appropriate. For example, Kentucky and Georgia both provide points for high schools that increase the number of students who complete rigorous career preparation programs. Idaho’s five-star rating system includes the percent of all juniors and seniors who complete an “advanced opportunity course”, including Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, dual credit, or tech prep in its formal accountability measure. Schools are able to earn additional points for increasing the percentage of students who earn a grade of “C” or better in such courses.

11. Adapt graduation requirements and scholarship criteria to give students credit for meeting rigorous career readiness indicators.

There are few incentives more powerful to high school students than telling them something will count toward graduation. Conversely, when courses or other demonstrations of knowledge don’t count, it signals that those things aren’t valued. States need to re-examine their high school graduation requirements and consider whether there are opportunities to allow career-focused courses and experiences to count for credit.

There are a number of different approaches to valuing career readiness in diploma requirements. States may allow rigorous CTE or dual enrollment courses offered in high-demand pathways to count toward course requirements. Or they may create diploma endorsements that award credit and provide extra recognition for fulfilling the requirements of high-demand career pathways, including earning credentials of value. States may also recognize work-based learning, capstone projects, or other competency-based approaches to demonstrating student knowledge.

As changes are made to these requirements, it is important to ensure that the academic expectations are not lowered in the process. Adding career readiness elements should be in addition to, not in lieu of, meeting rigorous college and career-ready expectations.

Indiana offers a CTE endorsement on its college and career-ready diploma, which requires students to complete rigorous academic courses, eight or more semesters of CTE, and two additional indicators of readiness, including a minimum score on WorkKeys; dual credit in a technical area; a professional career internship course or cooperative education course; a

20 Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

work-based learning experience; or a state-approved, industry-recognized certificate.28

Virginia requires that all students earn a state board-approved CTE credential such as industry certification; a state licensure exam; a national occupational competency assessment; or the Virginia workplace readiness skills assessment in order to graduate from high school with a standard diploma.29

And beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, North Carolina students will have the opportunity to earn a career endorsement on their diploma. To do this, students must complete a concentration of CTE courses in an approved industry cluster area, maintain a grade point average of 2.6 or higher, and earn one or more approved industry credentials.30

Scholarships are another important lever to align state incentives. The criteria for earning college scholarships can be adapted to recognize and incentivize student enrollment in and completion of career pathways in high-demand fields. This signals the value of these pathways and reinforces the message that they extend beyond high school into postsecondary education and training.

Last year, Louisiana aligned its college-prep curriculum with its state merit scholarship program requirements. This year, Louisiana plans to align its technical core curriculum with its state scholarship program for technical colleges. This will eliminate confusion for parents and counselors and will offer a common set of courses to qualify students for a diploma and a state scholarship.

28 Achieve and the National Association of State

Directors of CTE Consortium, “Making Career

Readiness Count”, (May, 2014).29 Virginia Department of Education, Standard

Diploma: Minimum Course & Credit Requirements.30 North Carolina State Board of Education, “North

Carolina High School Diploma Endorsements”,

Policy Manual (March 6, 2014).

Virginia’s state report card includes CTE, dual enrollment, and AP indicators. It reports the number of credentials earned by passing occupational competency assessments, state licensures, industry certifications, workplace readiness, CTE completers, AP tests taken, and dual enrollment courses taken.

In addition, Virginia has developed its own Work Readiness certificate that measures students’ abilities with respect to work ethic, conflict resolution, and customer service. It disaggregates results on this measure as well as the number of students earning state licensures, industry certifications, and passing competency assessments. Virginia also reports attainment levels of their Advanced Studies diploma, which requires students to complete a college prep course of study. Students pursuing the Standard diploma are required to earn an industry credential that has been approved by the Virginia Board of Education.

Kentucky includes both college-ready and career-ready indicators in its accountability system, the latter of which is broken down into career-ready-academic and career-ready-technical indicators. The academic indicators measure benchmark rates on WorkKeys or the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. The technical indicators consider industry-recognized credential attainment or meeting benchmarks on the state’s technical skills assessment.Schools are able to earn a point for students meeting either the college-ready or career-ready benchmark in their accountability score - and 1.5 points for students meeting both benchmarks - signifying that high-quality CTE is valued as much as high-quality academics, and that the two worlds must be brought together.

Georgia’s CCRPI awards schools points based on the percentage of their students who earn postsecondary credit through dual enrollment, Early College, AP or IB. It also reports the percentage of students who complete a CTE pathway and earn an industry credential or an IB career-related credential. Bonus points are awarded based on the percentage of students who complete a work-based learning program, a capstone project, or who enroll in a college and career academy.

Ohio’s new local report card system reports on a range of assessments at the school level, including the percentage of students who: take a college admission test and score above the remediation cut score; earn at least three dual enrollment credits; earn an industry credential, or earn an honors diploma. It also reports the participation rate of AP and IB courses as well as the percentage who score a 3 or above on AP exams and 4 or above on IB exams.

State Accountability Systems That Value

Career Readiness

21Opportunities and Options:Making Career Preparation Work for Students

CONCLuSiON

Preparing students for their futures is our most important job as educators. States that adopt the strategies outlined in this report will transform the educational experience for all students and provide them with meaningful college and career options after high school.

Educators can’t do this work alone. Effectively preparing students to grow and thrive in today’s economy requires a collective effort of K-12, postsecondary, and business leaders. We must work together in unprecedented ways and challenge our old assumptions about where one’s responsibility begins and the other’s ends.

We must now make a collective commitment to supporting all of our young people and providing them with multiple pathways to fulfilling careers.

Council of Chief State School OfficersOne Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700 | Washington, DC 20001-1431 | voice: 202.336.7000 | fax: 202.408.8072

Attachment C

1

Montgomery County Public Schools

METRICS OF CAREER READINESS SUCCESS

Grade Metric Description

Grade 6

Complete the Goal Setting program in Naviance. Students plan and describe their academic goals.

Hold information sessions for parents/guardians and students on breaking the financial barriers to higher education.

Students and parents/guardians will attend information sessions that introduce all families to the pathways to postsecondary education.

Grade 7

Participate in a Finance Park program and practice financial planning.

Students will learn how to financial plan, balance a checkbook, and apply for a car loan through the Finance Park program.

Complete a five-year plan by all students in Naviance.

Students will plan their five years of academic studies maximizing learning opportunities and their earned credit hours, as well as exploring the program opportunities available at the high school level.

Grade 8

Participate in their first job interview. Students will be interviewed by career day interviewers and as a result, will learn how to dress for success, how to write a resume, and how to communicate effectively during an interview.

Complete a mock application in Naviance.

Students will learn the different components of applying to postsecondary study and as a result, learn the importance of a strong academic program and diverse experiences.

Grade 9

Understand the importance of 21st century employability skills.

Students will learn what employability skills are and how they are an integral part of being career ready.

Reintroduce the Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs to students.

Students will explore the various opportunities available through the CTE programs and their requirements for certification/completion.

Grade 10

Establish career goals matched to strengths and interests in Naviance.

Students will learn how their personal interests and strengths match up with their various career goals.

Complete the Naviance Road Trip Nation Program.

Students will understand the relevance of their school work to complement their future career aspirations.

Grade 11

Prepare a postsecondary plan. Students will learn how to develop a postsecondary plan to be prepared for their post-Montgomery County Public Schools career endeavors.

Complete a career project.

Students will develop their own career project by studying a profession and/or establishing an internship, apprenticeship, or participating in a job shadowing experience in a chosen field of study.

Grade 12

Track scholarship recommendations and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Assistance (FAFSA) form.

Students will learn how to complete the FAFSA, and investigate other forms of financial assistance for postsecondary instruction.

Finish CTE completers and certification requirements.

Encourage more students to complete CTE programs and earn certifications as a component of learning more about postsecondary opportunities and their own interests. Strengthen completion data monitoring.