Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Standards

Introduction

As the content committees met and reviewed the eight subject specific standards (the seven listed areas plus career education), certain themes reoccurred. These common themes reinforce the notion that each content area draws on key elements of other content areas. For example, the need for students to learn problem-solving and critical thinking skills was reflected in all of the sets of standards. Since these cross-content workplace readiness standards are important to the success of all students in all content areas, they have been identified here for special emphasis:

1. All students will develop career planning and workplace readiness skills.
2. All students will use technology, information and other tools.
3. All students will use critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
4. All students will demonstrate self-management skills.
5. All students will apply safety principles.

While the indicators for the cross-content workplace readiness standards are not broken out by grade level, districts should begin building these concepts into their programs at the K-4 level in age appropriate activities, e.g., focusing on positive work habits. Other of the concepts are more appropriate for the higher grade levels, e.g., preparing a resume and completing job applications.

The following is a list of the cross-content workplace readiness standards, with cumulative progress indicators of student skills in each area. Unlike the progress indicators for the seven specific content sections, these indicators are not broken down into grade level clusters because, in addition to crossing all content areas, they also cross all grade levels. Teachers should integrate these concepts into all programs in content-specific and grade-appropriate ways.

Similar concepts have also been identified by members of the business and industry communities as vital. In a 1992 national report, the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) identified several of these concepts as necessary for success in the world of work. The following chart lists the SCANS Workplace Competencies and Foundation Skills referenced with the cross-content workplace readiness standards.

Scans And Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Standards

Scans Workplace Competencies
Effective workers can productively use:	Cross-Content Standards
Resources -- They know how to allocate time, money, materials, space, and staff.	Demonstrate self-management skills.
Interpersonal skills -- They can work on teams, teach others, serve customers, lead, negotiate, and work well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds.	Demonstrate self-management skills. Develop career planning and workplace readiness skills.
Information --They can acquire and evaluate data, organize and maintain files, interpret and communicate, and use computers to process information.	Use technology, information and other tools.
Systems -- They understand social, organizational, and technological systems; they can monitor and correct performance; and they can design or improve systems.	Use technology, information and other tools.
Technology -- They can select equipment and tools, apply technology to specific tasks, and maintain and troubleshoot equipment.	Use technology, information and other tools.

Scans Foundations Skills
Competent workers in the high-performance workplace need:	Cross-Content Standards
Basic Skills -- reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking and listening.	The seven sections of core content standards address this area.
Thinking Skills -- the ability to learn, to reason, to think creatively, to make decisions, and to solve problems.	Use critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
Personal Qualities -- individual responsibility, self-esteem and self-management, sociability, integrity, and honesty.	Demonstrate self-management skills. Apply safety principles.

Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Standards Linked with Core Content Areas

In some content areas the total standard addresses one or more of the cross-content workplace readiness standards. However, in other content areas the cross-content workplace readiness standards are addressed within the indicators and their related content.

Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Standards	The Arts (Visual and Performing)	Comprehensive Health and Physical Education	Language Arts Literacy	Mathematics	Science	Social Studies	World Languages
Develop Career Planning and Workplace Readiness Skills	Demonstrate originality, technical skills, and artistic expression in the creation, production and performance of dance, music, theater, or visual arts. 1.2.4	Analyze the causes of conflict and violent behavior in youth and adults, and describe nonviolent strategies for individuals and groups to prevent and resolve conflict. 2.2.10	Under-stand that written communication can affect the behavior of others. 3.3.15	Apply mathematics in their daily lives and in career-based contexts. 4.3.10	Recognize the role of the scientific community in responding to changing social and political conditions. 5.3.6	Describe work that people perform in our economic system. 6.6.3	Explore employment opportunities where languages are advantageous. 7.1.15
Use Technolo-gy, Infor-mation and Other Tools	Apply elements and media common to the arts to produce a work of art. 1.3.1	Describe and demonstrate a variety of ways to access and convey health information and ideas.2.2.1	Take notes on visual informa-tion from films, presenta-tions, observa-tions, and other visual media, and report that informa-tion through speaking, writing, or their own visual repre-sentation 3.5.10	Use technology to gather, analyze and display mathe-matical data and information. 4.5.5	Use technology to present the design and results of investigation. 5.2.3	Describe the influence of technology in daily life. 6.5.4	Use technology to enhance language acquisition, and to acquire current cultural information, in order to develop more accurate impressions of the culture studied. 7.2.13
Use Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, and Problem-Solving Skills	Identify and solve design problems in space, structures, objects, sound, and/or events for home and workplace. 1.6.3	Demonstrate decision-making and refusal skills in situations affecting health and safety. 2.2.2	Analyze text for the purpose, ideas, and style of the author. 3.4.22	Recognize that there may be multiple ways to solve a problem, weigh their relative merits, and select and use appropriate problem-solving strategies. 4.1.13	Compare the advantages and disadvan-tages of alternative solutions to practical problems. 5.4.9	Compare and contrast divergent interpresentations of historical turning points, using available evidence. 6.3.11	Examine interrela-tionships between the language and the culture of a given group of people, as evidenced in literary works. 7.2.8
Demon-strate Self-Manage-ment Skills	Offer constructive critique in the evaluation of their own and others' work in dance, music, theater, or visual arts. 1.4.2	Apply the principles of physiology, kinesiology, and psychology to improvepersonal performance in physical activity. 2.5.11	Adjust oral communi-cations for different purposes and audiences 3.1.2	Reflect on and clarify their thinking so as to present convincing arguments for their conclusions. 4.2.10	Keep a journal record of observa-tions, recognizing patterns of observa-tions and summar-izing findings. 5.2.4	Identify examples of the rights and responsi-bilities of citizens. 6.1.2	Communicate and interact in a limited range of task-oriented and social situations. 7.1.17
Apply Safety Principles	Demonstrate appropriate use of technology, tools, terminology, techniques, and media in the creation of dance, music, theater, or visual arts. 1.3.2	Explain how childhood injuries and illnesses can be prevented and treated. 2.1.4			Design and conduct experi-ments incorpora-ting the use of a control. 5.2.7	Identify how safety principles are taken into considera-tion in regards to social, cultural, technological, and economic processes that shape the environ-ment. 6.8.17 6.9.8

References

America 2000: An Education Strategy. (1991). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Copa, G. and Pease, V. (1992). A new vision for the comprehensive high school. Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education.

Massachusetts Department of Education. (1995). Education today. Boston.

New Jersey Department of Education. (1995). Strategic plan for systemic improvement of education in New Jersey. (Draft). Trenton.

New Jersey Mathematics Coalition and the New Jersey Department of Education. (1995). New Jersey mathematics curriculum framework. (Preliminary version). Trenton.

The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. (1992). Learning a living: a blueprint for high performance. A SCANS report for America 2000. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor.

Vermont Department of Education. Content standards for Vermont's common core framework.

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