Most of us have an idea of what the terms college and career ready mean – the skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary for a student to enter the workforce or postsecondary education. And no doubt most of us have encountered several variations on college and career readiness and how we achieve it for all students. Yet if we step back for a moment and consider these terms, the very order of the words seems to promote college readiness above career readiness. Now, I realize that words must come in some order and perhaps it just sounds better. Thinking too much about it could get us into a useless chicken or egg loop, but just humor me for a moment. When I looked at word order and thought about what we value most, my gut reaction was that career trumps college because college is the preparation for the career. But, the perennial student in me, kept saying, “College is not about a career. It is about learning and growing.” In fact college is about all of these – learning, growing as a person, and developing the skills to succeed in a chosen career.
So if we agree that college and career are both important the question is: Which one should come first and does the fact that what comes first is college really mean that we value college above workforce entry? I am certain that it doesn’t mean that 100% of the time. Yet, for much of its history our educational system has placed students who have experienced greater academic success into college-bound coursework and placed less academically successful students into less demanding coursework that may not prepare them for college or a career. This “tracking” has left us with a two-tier system where college remains the most highly-valued accomplishment for students – and often for educators and community members – to the detriment of students who choose to enter the workforce and job training after graduation.
When we say “college and career readiness” the order of the words takes on a greater meaning – it implies that we choose to retain the hierarchy of college for successful students and preparation for workforce entry for less-able students. It seems that this hierarchy is represented in other ways in the debate as well. For example, a colleague recently pointed out an example in the word-collage graphic at the beginning of the National High School Center’s Defining College and Career Readiness: A Resource Guide (2012). In the graphic “college” appears much larger than all of the other words, including “career.” “Career” is much smaller and is the same size as the words “ready,” “skills,” and “students.” Similarly, while most organizations posit that preparing students for college and careers are equally important, they often offer many more resources aimed at college preparation than readiness to enter the workforce or workforce training.
However, thanks to the work of organizations like Achieve and ACT, the last few years have produced a major and ongoing change in the way we think about the importance of postsecondary education and workforce preparedness. Achieve, the Education Trust, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (2004), and ACT (2006) made the argument that students need the same core set of academic knowledge to succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce early in the college and career readiness debate. And several other organizations agree, including the Educational Policy Improvement Center. EPIC (2012) offers that “it serves no useful purpose to separate students into two groups, one bound for college, the other for work. All students aspire to enter the workforce, and, to do so, all will need a comparable set of foundational skills and learning abilities if they are to succeed.” For another example, see the National Governor’s Association’s report on state college and career ready plans that promotes the equal importance of preparing students for both postsecondary education and workforce entry (Reyna, 2010).
Many organizations embrace the idea that students need a comparable foundation for both college and careers, yet we see in the graphics we use and the very terms themselves that we still have work to do to elevate the importance of preparing students for workforce entry and all necessary job training. It is not a simple process and means we need to think deeply about the way we organize learning, the core curriculum requirements for graduation, and the abilities and knowledge that we ask students to demonstrate. But thinking about the way we order words and the reason we do it is at least a start to thinking about what it means to say career and college ready.
References
Achieve, Inc., The Education Trust, & The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. (2004). Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts. Washington, DC: American Diploma Project. Retrieved on December 14, 2012, from http://www.achieve.org/files/ReadyorNot.pdf.
ACT, Inc. (2006). Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different? Iowa City, Ia.: Author. Retrieved December 14, 2012, from https://www.act.org/content/act/en/research/pdfs/ready-for-collegeandreadyforworksameordifferent.html
National High School Center. (2012). Defining college and career readiness: A resource guide. Retrieved December 14, 2012, from https://ccrscenter.org/products-resources/defining-college-and-career-readiness-resource-guide
Reyna, R. (2010). Setting statewide college- and career-ready goals. Washington, DC: NGA Center for Best Practices. Retrieved January 3, 2012, from https://ccrscenter.org/sites/default/files/NHSC_DefiningCCRResourceGuide_2012_0.pdf