The journey to answering the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is no longer as straightforward as it may have been in years past.  Rapid and ever-evolving technological advances change the landscape of the educational and workplace environments at a dizzying pace.

Millions of American children are not engaged, attaining, or thriving in secondary educational institutions.  Regardless of how one discretely defines these attributes, holistically speaking, adolescents of today are largely unprepared for adulthood.  Specifically, these adolescents are not ready, upon graduation, to attend any institution of higher learning or secure meaningful employment. In short, they are not College and Career Ready.

Preparing youth for today’s competitive environment falls mainly at the feet of the secondary educational system⁽¹⁾. However, with an overwhelming 44.8% of high school juniors and seniors not feeling positive about their college and career readiness (2) it is clear that secondary educational institutions need to take steps, in tandem with parents, to help them prepare. Generally, college and career readiness can be defined as the:

“level of preparation a student needs in order to enroll and succeed, without remediation, in a credit-bearing course at a postsecondary institution that offers a baccalaureate degree or transfer to a baccalaureate program, or in a high-quality certificate program that enables students to enter a career pathway with potential future advancement” ^(3).

Read this definition to any person on the street and ask if they think the youth of today meet these criteria, and, from the research, the answer would likely be “no.” That chance increases as you ask parents, teachers, college professors, and employers.

Since successful participation in the college classroom and workforce requires both formal education and hands-on experience to be college-ready, it necessitates that the secondary educational system is responsible for best preparing the students while they are still in school. Virginia schools are ready for this challenge, through various programs such as internships, externships, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs as well as the integration of career exploration as part of the foundational curriculum.

Career exploration is longer be thought of as an elective to be taken as a “time filler” on the student’s schedule.  Virginia is creating a meaningful and streamlined progression for career exploration, not a course that provides a list and says “go learn about this on your own.” Virginia also utilizes the Advance CTE: State Leaders Connecting Learning to Work! a program which offers courses under the 16 different career clusters with 70 different career pathway⁽⁴⁾.  

By incorporating both college and career education training in hard and soft skills, Virginia’s Profile of a Graduate marches in lock-step with the goals of colleges and employers alike, preparing Virginia graduates for success in the 21^st century.