A presentation made at the Career & Technical Association of Texas Conference, July 2009

1. Do You Know If Your Students Are Career Ready?

2. Changes in Workforce Skills Needs Across 50 Years Unskilled 12% Skilled 20% Professional 20% Unskilled 60% Professional 20% Skilled 68% 1955 2005

3. Many Middle-Skilled Jobs Pay as well as Jobs Requiring a Bachelor’s Degree

4. Training for College or Workplace? The needs of college and workplace-bound students are merging: “Whether planning to enter college or workforce training programs after graduation, high school students need to be educated to a comparable level of readiness in reading and mathematics.” - ACT, Inc. Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different?

5. How to Measure Readiness for a Skilled Workforce or College? We need: A common language – what are the skills required? “We need to ask employers what are the math skills required for the job.” Foundational skills – complement job-specific skills “69% of applicants are rejected at hire because they lack basic skills, 32% because they lack reading and math skills” Applied skills – apply the knowledge “Students exiting our educational system have knowledge. But their demonstrated inability to apply that knowledge implies that they don’t understand what they know.” Jo Kister, Ph.D. Workforce Development Consultant

6. The National Career Readiness Certificate Addresses These Needs: Certifies the common workplace skills and trainability of students and job seekers Is a nationally-recognized, portable credential Is recognized by both education and business Provides a common measurement between individuals and specific jobs Has been adopted by over 20 states and growing http://www.act.org/certificate

7. 2 Skill Assessments: Measures an individual’s skill level Job Profiling: Determines the level of skill necessary to learn a job 1 3 Education / Training: Efficiently closes skill gaps Based upon the WorkKeys® Job Skills System

13. NCRC Provides Information on Skills

15. Benefits of the NCRC? Portable credential for basic workplace skills Business: Easy way to measure skills Individuals: Easy way to demonstrate skills Economic Development: Document the quality of workforce Education, Workforce Development, Training Organizations, and Business: Speak a common language

17. Frenship High School Implementation Visited with 284 CTE seniors about the NCRC 157 CTE seniors took all three tests 113 CTE seniors received the NCRC 18 Gold 64 Silver 31 Bronze These seniors received this certification at our Annual CTE Banquet

20. Market Leaders for WorkKeys Curricula North Carolina – 41 of 52 Community Colleges Arkansas – State License – all Community Colleges & Workforce Indiana – State License (over 750 Sites) WIA, Colleges, Corrections Oklahoma – State License - CTE Centers and One Stops Ohio – State License Dept. of Admin Services, ABE recommendation Louisiana – 47 of 49 Technical and Community Colleges Virginia – 21 of 23 Community Colleges West Virginia – State License - Adult Education and One Stops Tennessee – State License - Technology Centers Illinois – Chicago Public Schools over 350 High Schools Kentucky – State License - KCTCS North Dakota – Statewide License - One Stops Georgia – Over 140 (1/3) High Schools, ½ Colleges, ½ WIA Oregon– State License - Teacher/ParaPro Hawaii – State License - Community Colleges New Mexico – Statewide License - Corrections Colorado – State License - One Stops, Statewide- Corrections Connecticut - State License – One Stops Mississippi – Statewide License – Community Colleges

21. WorkKeys & KeyTrain Business Users Advanced Glassfibers, Inc. Arch Chemicals AVX Board of Light Bowater Bridgestone Firestone BWX Technologies Campbell Soup CAPT (Honda Supplier) Chrysler Coors Brewing Co. Dixie Group Dow Chemical DuPont E J Gallo Eastman Chemical Eaton Corporation Energizer Farley Nuclear Federal Mogul Founder's Furniture, div. of Thomasville Georgia Power GM GoodYear Holnam Cement Inova Health Systems Kimberly Clark Leiner Health Products M & M Mars Mail America Mueller Neptune Technology Newton Instruments Northrop Grumman Olin Chemical Owens Corning Parker Hannifan Corporation Pass & Seymour Perry Foam Products PGT Industries Polyply Protein Technologies Rexam Pharma S & W Manufacturing Seaman Siemens Soffix Solo Cups Southern Company Stanley Furniture Steelscape Temple Inland Thomasville Furniture Tyco Unilever Vermeer Manufacturing Watson Westinghouse WIX-Dana Wrangler Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

22. KeyTrain Unique Features Instructional Design Natural Voice Sound Track Contextualized Feedback Staff Experience More than 120 years combined WorkKeys experience Previous ACT executives, some of the earliest pioneers Easy to use User friendly yet powerful management system Consistent , easy navigation: focus on learning, not software Results Their success = their clients’ success Features and processes that focus on learning Customer Service 24/7 for the last 11 years Our philosophy

23. Resources: Presenter: Cindy Miller, Frenship ISD CTE Coordinator (cmiller@frenship.us) ACT WorkKeys Texas Representative: Day Smith (dsmith@act.org) National Career Readiness Certificate (www.act.org/certificate) WorkKeys Curricula—Career Ready 101 at www.keytrain.com.