Today the Career Readiness Partners Council (CRPC) released an important document that establishes that career readiness must foster “adaptability and a commitment to lifelong learning, along with a mastery of key knowledge, skills and dispositions that vary from one career to another and change over time.”

The goal of the Career Readiness Partner Council is to enhance reform efforts around college and career readiness to include a more comprehensive understanding of what it means to be career ready. The Council’s statement, Building Blocks for Change: What it Means to be Career Ready makes clear that career readiness is a process of connecting “education and employment to achieve a fulfilling, financially-secure and successful career.”

“This bold, clear and comprehensive vision crystallizes what it means to be career ready and advances earlier policy debates that too often focused almost exclusively on college entrance and completion,” said Kimberly Green, Executive Director of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, the group that coordinated the effort. “We realized that what is needed is a broader approach that combines education and workforce preparation under one umbrella. With this document, the Career Readiness Partner Council has taken an important step toward that goal.”

You may wish to take a moment to read and discuss the definition with your colleagues. What implications does it have for your work and how could it be of value in improving our educational system?