While policymakers often use the phrase “college and career readiness” to describe the goals of K-12 education, the truth is that most school reform initiatives focus on college readiness alone. Career readiness is often treated as an afterthought, as if it were just a side-effect of completing a college-prep curriculum and not something to be pursued in its own right.
However—and as I argue in a newly released report, Let’s Get Real: Deeper Learning and the Power of the Workplace (the latest in Students at the Center’s Deeper Learning Research Series)—career readiness deserves serious attention of its own, for at least a couple of reasons.