Advocates Press for New Definition of Career Readiness

As educators push schools to produce high school graduates who are ready to succeed in college or good jobs, an association of professionals in career and technical education is trying to influence policy by defining what it considers to be “career readiness.”

The definition , issued last week by the Association for Career and Technical Education , arrives as policymakers try to delineate the skills and knowledge students need to thrive as they move into higher education or a rapidly changing work world. A rough consensus is emerging on a definition of college readiness as the ability to pass entry-level, credit-bearing courses without remediation. But the definition of “career ready” generally gets less attention and often gets rolled into the college-readiness one.