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Colleges and employers emphasize the importance of core skills.
Standards writers, curriculum designers, and classroom teachers have spent the past several years clamoring to find ways to revitalize curriculum and instruction and increase rigor in ways that prepare students for life after school.
We all agree that students need an education that prepares them for college and career. We know the statistics about students who go to college unprepared for the rigors of college coursework, relegated to taking courses for no credit, decreasing the likelihood that they will graduate.
But preparation for college and career success requires much more than exposure to a robust curriculum. While a solid knowledge base in classic literature or advanced levels of math certainly won't hurt a young person on the precipice of adulthood, the voices of workforce leaders describe a skills gap of a different nature, a gap in competencies rather than content.
Today's employers perceive a lack of softskills among recent graduates. Softskills, sometimes called key skills, core skills, key competencies, or employability skills, are those desirable qualities that apply across a variety of jobs and life situations-traits such as integrity, communication, courtesy, responsibility, professionalism, flexibility, and teamwork.
While these softskills are cited as integral to workplace success- according to...