Demographics & Workforce Group

1. Virginia’s New Workplace Readiness Skills Demographics & Workforce Group • Weldon Cooper Center • University of Virginia VACTEASeptember 2010

2. Workplace Readiness: A Moving Target CTE aims to give students the skills to succeed in the workplace, but this is a moving target. A 1950s education won’t prepare students for a 21st century occupation.

3. 1997 Research Keeps CTE Up to Date Led to the creationof Virginia’s first Workplace Readiness Skills List New national research inspired this revision

4. The Most Important National Research • What skills are necessary for success in the workplace of the 21st century? Are They Really Ready to Work(commissioned by thePartnership for 21st Century Skills)

5. Academic &Applied Skills • While the “three Rs” are fundamental to any new workforce entrant’s ability to do the job, employers emphasize that applied skills like Teamwork/Collaboration and Critical Thinking are “very important” to success at work.

6. “Very Important Skills” for HS Graduates Percent Ranking Skills as “Very Important” for High School Graduates Source: Are They Really Ready for Work, 2006

7. Most CTE graduates go to collegeWhat skills do they need? Source: CTE Completer Follow-Up Survey

8. “Very Important Skills” for College Graduates Percent Rating Skills as “Very Important” for College Graduates Source: Are They Really Ready for Work, 2006

9. Most Valuable Applied Skills Source: Are They Really Ready to Work?

10. Where Students are Deficient Source: Are They Really Ready to Work?

11. Why Do Academic Skills Have Lower Ratings? Because they are usually job specific

12. Most Applied Skills Are Universally Needed Critical Thinking Integrity Time management Work ethic Conflict Resolution Health &Safety

13. Employers Want Schools to Teach WRS Who Should Be Responsible for Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills? Source: Are They Really Ready for Work, 2006

14. Why teach these skills in school? Opportunities for work experience are decreasing. • The recession has cut job opportunities for youth. • Structural change in the labor market means a tough teen job market is here to stay.

15. Teen Employment is Now the Lowest Since WWII Source: Andrew Sum, Collapse of the Nation’s Labor Market for Teens, 2009

16. Low-Income Teens Have Less Work Experience Source: Andrew Sum, Collapse of the Nation’s Labor Market for Teens, 2009

17. 1997 WRS 1. Reading 2. Mathematics 3. Writing 4. Speaking & Listening 5. Computer Literacy 6. Reasoning, Problem Solving, Decision Making 7. Understanding the Big Picture 8. Work Ethic 9. Positive Attitude 10. Independence and Initiative 11. Self-presentation 12. Satisfactory Attendance 13. Teamwork How Virginia is Addressing WRS • Virginia’s first list of WRS was introduced in 1997. • Research began in 2008 on the new list, introduced in 2010.

18. Demographics & Workforce Revision Was a Team Effort

19. Building a New Skills List, Step by Step • Review national research; • Review other state and national WRS initiatives; • Crosswalk & compare existing WRS list to list from other states and other research initiatives; • Develop a draft list of 21 skills for review by Virginia employers.

20. Essential, Useful, Optional Virginia employers participated in an online comment process • More than 300 Employers: • Rated each draft skill; • Offered open-ended comments on the skills they need.

21. Final Workplace Readiness Skills List Personal Qualities & People Skills Professional Knowledge & Skills • Positive Work Ethic • Integrity • Teamwork • Self Representation • Diversity awareness • Professional ethics • Conflict Resolution • Creativity & Resourcefulness • Speaking & Listening • Reading & Writing • Critical Thinking & Problem Solving • Health & Safety • Organizations, Systems, & Climates • Lifelong Learning • Job Acquisition & Advancement • Time, Task, & Resource Management • Mathematics • Customer Service Technology Knowledge & Skills • Job Specific Technologies • Information Technology • Internet Use & Security • Telecommunications

22. Virginia’s CTE Resource Center

23. The New List Is Finished. Now What? • Introduced to the CTE Advisory Committee and CTE administrators across the state, April 2010 • Converted skills list into appropriate format for Virginia’s CTE curriculum, Spring 2010 • (Skills become “tasks” with task definitions to amplify and describe the skills.) • Researched and developed instructional resources to complement all WRS tasks, Spring 2010 • Introduced statewide in a Verso e-mail message, June 1, 2010, for implementation 2010–2011

24. Implementing the New WRS in the Classroom: What This Means for Teachers • The 21 skills now appear as the first 21 tasks in every CTE course in Verso. • These skills are marked “essential” and must be taught. • Just like the course-specific tasks, each WRS has a task definition and related SOL. • Each task number is linked to a variety of instructional resources that have been combined from many sources.

25. Use and Infuse Crosswalking course tasks/competencies to the new WRS • Teachers should look for tasks that might already cover a WRS. • For example, teaching a task similar to “Explore career and college options for life-long learning” most likely also addresses WRS # 13 and 14. • When teaching and evaluating a student’s performance on this course-specific task, the teacher may also be able to document his or her performance on these two WRS.

26. If teachers are not already addressing all of the WRS somewhere in their courses . . . They should use the many WRS resources have provided within the course framework, including • background information • instructional activities • lesson plans • Web sites.

28. Evaluating Student Performance Just as in the task list, the New WRS also appear in the student competency record as the first 21 tasks. • They are all marked “essential” and must be taught and rated. The New WRS will soon have a new industry credential. • A new Virginia-specific test is being developed now and will be ready for use in the spring semester 2011. • It will stand alone as a certification (the current version has to be combined with another test to count).

29. In Summary . . . The New Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth • are well researched • are up to date • are reflective of Virginia employer needs • are incorporated into all CTE courses • come with many teaching resources • will have a new industry credential.

30. Questions? Achsah Carrier Demographics & Workforce Group Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service University of Virginia achsah.carrier@virginia.edu 434-982-5582 Peggy Watson CTE Resource Center info@cteresource.org http://cteresource.org 804-673-3778

31. References • Casner-Lotto, Jill and Barrington L. Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce. Society for Human Resource Management, in collaboration with The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2006 • Eisen, Phyllis, Jerry J. Jasinowski, and Richard Kleinert. 2005 Skills Gap Report- A Survey of the American Manufacturing Workforce. Deloitte Development, 2005. • Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Framework for 21st Century Learning. 2009 • The Society for Human Resource Management and WSJ.com/Careers. Critical Skills Needs and Resources for the Changing Workplace. 2008. • Sum, Andrew. “The Collapse of the Nation’s Labor Market for Teens and Young Adults (20-24): Designing A Set of Workforce Development Strategies to Improve the Immediate and Long-Term Employment Prospects of the Nation’s Youth.” Center for Labor Market Studies Northeastern University, 2009.