• ​​How well do existing High/Middle schools serve our students? 
• How are our young people changing?  
• How is our community changing? 
• How are higher education, workforce, and life changing?  Are there new demands?  Opportunities?

Google search:  How often will people switch jobs in the future?

• New paradigm - people will have multiple jobs, they will change jobs every few years
• Important skills - teamwork, leadership, information processing, creative thinking, data analysis, self-starter, flexibility, learner, sharer

Partnership for 21st Century Skills - great website full of resources​

• 4 Essential Skills
  1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  2. Communication
  3. Collaboration
  4. Creativity and Innovation

"5 facts about America's students" by Lauren Kent, FactTank, Pew Research Center, 08/10/2015

• Sentence - "Milennials are on track to be the most educated generation in history..."
  • What are we doing with all of these highly educated young people?
• Phrase - "...still lag behind whites..."
  • We are getting higher rates of graduation with minorites.  More minorities are attending college.  But many minorities still lag behind their white peers in obtaining degrees.  Are we teaching the skills necessary to be successful in college to ALL students?
• Word - diverse
  • Most white students still attend largely white schools; Hispanic and black students still attend largely minority-majority schools.  How can we make our schools more diverse?  

Tony Wagner's 7 Survival Skills - author of Creating Innovators:  The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

1. Critical thinking and problem solving (starting to sound familiar)
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3. Agility and adapability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

"Education for Life and Work:  Developing Transferable Knowledge and 21st Century Skills", published by National Research Council and The National Academies Press, 2012

• 3 Domains of Competence
  1. Cognitive - includes critical thinking, problem solving, analysis, information literacy, creativity, innovation; needs fluid intelligence, background knowledge, retrievability
  2. Intrapersonal - includes flexibility, adaptability, responsibility, diversity, curiosity, initiative, grit, self-evaluation; needs openness, conscientiousness (studies show this trait in particular correlates to success, even to improved health!), and emotional stability  How do we cultivate conscientiousness? 
  3. Interpersonal - includes communication, collaboration, teamwork, empathy, trust, conflict resolution, leadership; needs agreeableness, extroversion
• Studies show that higher scores on cognitive tests (i.e. standardized) correlates to higher earnings.  How do we get more students to high achievement without sacrificing important traits or teaching to a test?
• Cognition investment in children is best at younger ages (6-9).  Conscientiousness (and other non-cognitive investments) is more important at later ages (9-13).

"Students With Disabilities Need to be College- and Career-Ready Too", by Brooke Haycock, The Education Trust, Nov 21, 2013

• This article serves as a reminder that too many SWDs are graduating without the skills necessary to function in college and in many careers.  We are setting up kids to be unemployed and unemployable.  How can there be so many supports and students are still not being helped?  Are we providing the wrong supports?  How do we change how our students are taught so ALL students can be ready for an innovative and/or entrepreneurial future?

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