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Connecting Activities

School to Career

For Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Economy

The mission of School-to-Career is to give all students the academic, technical/technological and employability skills necessary to compete in higher education and high performance workplaces.

Already most decent paying jobs -- and those growing most rapidly -- require skills and knowledge beyond the teachings of high school. School-to-career provides a system that looks to employers to articulate the skills needed for success, and for employers to work with educators to ensure students graduate with relevant skills and knowledge.The twenty-first century demands academic as well as occupational mastery.

Class activity that reflects the realities of today's hi-tech workplace, teachers informed of current industry practice and skill-needs, students aware of the careers available and the education necessary to succeed in those careers -- school-to-career can assure the Commonwealth a highly educated and skilled workforce.

Today, many high school students end their educational years without mastering the thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving skills needed to succeed in a workplace setting.

Working closely with the changes brought on by Education Reform in Massachusetts, teachers are teaching the content of the state's Learning Standards in context of careers. And entire schools are restructuring around Career Majors to address the challenges of Education Reform.

Employer Leadership

For years, schools have welcomed businesses to their doors -- typically, only with check in hand. Rarely have they been included in substantive educational issues and often re-buffed as self-serving when relating to career goals.

School-to-career moves business from patrons to partners. Now, the business community, through its roles in mentoring, training and goal setting, is a cornerstone of the system. Students gain:

• job experience
• employable skills
• the ability to make informed choices regarding careers and college

Employers gain:

• a larger, skilled pool of workers
• reduced training efforts
• a role in shaping a future workforce.

Reaching Scale

The business community considers its abundance of high-skilled and semi-skilled jobs as a crisis -- now and for the future. School to career seeks to construct a universal system that substantially improves educational attainment, occupational mastery, and access to careers and college.

Contact your Workforce Investment Board

Contact your STC Local Partnership