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Building Competencies for Careers: Preparing Students for Twenty-First-Century Jobs

Building Competencies for Careers:
Preparing Students for Twenty-First-Century Jobs

Panelists
Maria Ferguson, Executive Director, Center on Education Policy
Major General (Ret.) Mike Hall, U.S. Air Force, Mission: Readiness, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wings of Eagles Discovery Center
Sam Whiting, Director of Global Corporate Citizenship, Boeing
Jason Amos, Vice President of Communications, Alliance for Excellent Education (Moderator)

As the nation’s labor market continues to grow and adapt to a changing world, so must experiences students have in the nation’s schools. However, many of today’s schools still rely on an outdated model in which teachers lecture from the front of the classroom and students sit passively in rows of desks. Truly innovative schools teach students how to apply content knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world situations while helping them develop the critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and other deeper learning skills that today’s jobs demand.

This webinar, cohosted by the Alliance for Excellent Education, Center on Education Policy (CEP), and Council for a Strong America, featured a new research report from CEP on the most valuable skills and competencies required for more than 300 occupations nationwide. It also examined the role that external partners, including business, higher education, and community organizations, can play in helping students develop expertise in the field to supplement the academic content and learning that takes place in schools.

Additional Resources

  • Maria Ferguson’s Presentation
  • Action steps from the Alliance for Excellent Education that business leaders, higher education, community members, and K-12 educators can take in their schools and communities to better prepare students for college and career
  • A series of toolkits from the Alliance for Excellent Education that offer support and guidance to state education leaders and school district leaders as they consider whether to implement or expand a college and career readiness initiative in their schools and districts.

The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington, DC–based national policy, practice, and advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all students, particularly those traditionally underserved, graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and citizenship.
https://all4ed.org

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) is a national, independent source for research and information about public education. CEP helps Americans better understand the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools. CEP tries to help citizens make sense of the conflicting opinions and perceptions about public education and create the conditions that will lead to better public schools.
www.cep-dc.org

Council for a Strong America is a national, bipartisan nonprofit that unites five organizations comprised of law enforcement leaders, retired admirals and generals, business executives, pastors, and prominent coaches and athletes who promote solutions that ensure the next generation of Americans will be citizen-ready. www.strongnation.org

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