[00:00:00] Alicia Boddy: What are durable skills exactly and how does a competency framework support their development? That’s what we’ll explore in the second episode of our three part series, The Durable Skills Advantage.
[00:00:12] Hello again. I’m Alicia Abadi, Vice President of Partnerships at America Succeeds.
[00:00:18] america Succeeds is a nonprofit organization committed to engaging business leaders and modernizing education systems. We’ve positioned our team between business and the education policy sector, acting as an education voice to business, nationally, and a business voice for education at the state level.
[00:00:40] our advocacy work and policy efforts aim at larger culture change, bridging these two distinct constituencies. And our vision is preparing every student to succeed in the competitive global economy and contribute to their local communities. We identifying durable skills, clarifying these competencies, And articulating their value for employers, educators, and learners of all ages are ways to realize this vision. Thanks for joining us for this second conversation. Now, let’s return to the conversation between Stephanie Short, my predecessor here, and Tim Taylor, co founder and president of America Succeeds. This time, Stephanie kicks off the discussion by sharing her own journey discovering durable skills. It didn’t follow the typical pathway to education advocacy.
[00:01:33] Stephanie Short: I started in marketing and I was in the tech sector. And somewhere along the line, someone convinced me that policy advocacy work was just really good communications. And so I fell into the world of economic development and chambers of commerce And policy advocacy that’s right up against this space.
[00:01:54] And it was through that journey that I found America Succeeds and found an organization that really spoke to me. Not just because of the problems that were set out to solve, But also because of my own personal educational journey and the reflection that I’ve had the opportunity to do since being in this role, that each learner, every person has a really unique pathway to success and we need more opportunities to expand exploration, to expand self development, to expand that awareness, to create into the world of work for more of the people in our communities.
[00:02:37] And so I bring all of that and get to talk about all of that day to day in my role at America Succeeds.
[00:02:44] Tim Taylor: That’s great, Steph. Let’s keep this going for a bit. So you’ve worked really hard on durable skills in recent years and you’ve had hundreds of conversations with partners of all kinds.
[00:02:54] What is it that resonates with those partners? sometimes it feels like we’re the dog that caught the car. What makes it so? Why has this taken off?
[00:03:02] Stephanie Short: I think you kind of said it best. Durable skills are something that people inherently understand. From their own personal experience with friends and colleagues, with their own families, and certainly when reflecting on their own pathways into the world of work.
[00:03:21] analysis that we did, the labor market analysis of more than 80 million jobs across the country is such powerful data to articulate the need for these skills in the workforce. And people get it really quickly. So the questions then become, how do we teach durable skills and how do we measure them?
[00:03:41] Like, What does it look like to do this at scale so that more people are set up for success? And so when I talk to partners, when we give our pitch, when we go through this work, it so quickly gets to that point. You know better than I do, talking about and advocating for durable skills is so much easier than advocating for super wonky, literacy reforms or funding formula or everything else that is broadly in this education systems change space.
[00:04:12] And so it’s exciting to do this work because it’s such A commonality, regardless of your perspective and regardless of your worldview. And so it’s an exciting place for us to be, to then think about how do we push this forward to make real change.
[00:04:28] Tim Taylor: it’s really fun to be doing this work, I agree with you. So, We’re enjoying the moment we’re in for sure, and I think that we’re really bullish on the opportunity to improve outcomes for kids through this work. You moderate dozens of panels at conferences across the country, sharing this work with folks. have you heard on those panels? What types of examples? What are the things that really get folks going where it just, it’s so clear that there’s a demand for these types of skills and that there’s a gap of how we get them into the classroom and what that looks like.
[00:05:02] Stephanie Short: Frankly, my favorite examples are the ones that look the least like we imagine traditional school looking today. It is the students at Maritime High School out in Seattle, Washington, who are going out into their community and engaging with the industry and doing these really There are all about helping them see themselves within those futures while developing the knowledge and the durable skills that they’ll need to thrive regardless of how they succeed.
[00:05:35] I would shout out the same for our partners at NAF or within CAPS Network or just recently I was visiting Charlotte Lab School. There’s so many examples where students And schools have created these really thoughtful, intentional, learner centered models for doing this work in ways that are so inspiring.
[00:05:59] It is especially inspiring when you have the opportunity to engage with the students themselves, because they are just dripping in durable skills. I know that when I was a middle school or high school student, I could not have walked into a room of adults and given my opinion about what my school could look like.
[00:06:20] I would have been absolutely terrified. And over the past few years, there’s been countless examples and conversations with young people who are so articulate in expressing exactly that. And my takeaway is always just… That they are dripping in durable skills, and I am so confident that no matter what the world throws at them, they are going to come out okay.
[00:06:42] And so what I want, and I think what’s been exciting is it seems like what more and more people seem to want, is for our learners to get access to the types of experiences that will set them up for the same success.
[00:06:58] Tim Taylor: Yeah, it’s super inspiring to see kids engaging in and practicing and demonstrating their durable skills. You just figure so many of them are going to nail their, first. Interview when it comes time to get a job. You were talking a little bit about the way that, there are pockets of excellence and there are places that are just knocking this out of the park, but scale is something that we’ve not achieved yet. There are some states that are taking on this work and have some things in place that are setting them up for success. Can you talk a little bit about those?
[00:07:28] Stephanie Short: Yes, there are a handful of states across the country who are primed with the right systems, conditions, and the right alignment of all the different stakeholders to do this work really well. Indiana is one of those leaders. North Carolina has put durable skills into their state portrait of a graduate.
[00:07:48] You think about the handfuls of others, the Utah’s, the Arkansas’s, the Virginia’s, where at least from that highest level, they’ve identified the importance of this skill set. Your question, though, and the heart of this work is really around scale, and there’s three key barriers, that we need to solve for in doing this work really well.
[00:08:11] The first is that creating a common language and a common set of definitions around these skills, so that when North Carolina says all of our students are going to learn personal responsibility, We have a common understanding of what that means and what that looks like. That is something that we’ve tried to tackle with the Durable Skills Advantage Competency Framework.
[00:08:35] The second question is then how do we validate learning and competency around those skill sets? And I think that’s where this work becomes particularly interesting, as it relates to the connection between education and the workforce. What are the multitude of ways that learners might develop their durable skills to get access to a particular interview or a job, to go on to the college or post secondary route of their choice?
[00:09:04] And that can be things like… Surveys and credentials and portfolios and different types of demonstrations and assessments and thankfully technology and especially everything that’s emerging with AI and language models is meaning that there’s a ton of opportunity and excitement in doing that work really well.
[00:09:25] And then the third barrier and challenge that we really need to overcome is all of the It’s the human capital development, the professional development, and the support that educators and employers and even the learners themselves need to bring this new skills based paradigm to life. So it’s the common language, it’s the validation, and then it’s the sort of suite of change supports that bring durable skills to life in an intentional way.
[00:09:56] Tim Taylor: That’s such good stuff. there are three things that have the wind at our back as it relates to this. One is a big shift in how employers are hiring and a big uptick in the skills based hiring movement. Looking to hire people based on their skills, not on a degree.
[00:10:11] And when states 15 states, I believe, have now removed a four year degree requirement from their hiring we’re seeing a change in the way employers are going to be looking at resumes and hiring and durable skills are a critical component of what’s going to happen and how people are hired in the future.
[00:10:28] The second is broad community buy in. The portraits of a graduate that you mentioned, many of the things that we’ve talked about in an era where there is a lot of fraction and divisiveness in our country. This is something where there is almost universal buy in. Everyone understands the importance of these skills, whether they want their kids to get a job or whether they want to work with colleagues who have these types of skills in their own offices. The last piece that I would add to that is that schools are looking for innovations. They have opportunities to assess differently and embedding these durable skills and measuring these durable skills on the back end. Now is the time to be able to do that because there are pieces in place that are allowing that. So we’ve talked about the supply and demand sides of the house and the work that we do at America Succeeds. We’ve been fortunate to engage hundreds of employers in this work.. What, in your opinion, has been the, hook? What’s the most interesting part of this for an employer or for anybody who’s looking to try to solve workforce demand and supply issues?
[00:11:30] Stephanie Short: As you mentioned, we’ve engaged hundreds of employers within this work. In developing the Durable Skills Competency Framework, we first convened 20 ish subject matter experts from companies like Amazon, and Johnson Johnson, and Latos, and Discover, and asked them what Durable Skills look like to create a first draft of definitions.
[00:11:56] And then we took… That draft framework out on the road and asked more than 800 organizations for their feedback on that set of definitions that was created. And I think the most surprising insight, having facilitated many of those conversations, was the gap, albeit not a big gap, but the gap between employer expectations around durable skills and educators view of what competency in that skill set meant.
[00:12:28] for example, when our subject matter experts met, we also included these five incredible young people from across the country. And as business leaders were going through and putting those definitions on paper, we would hear, that just seems like too much for someone early in their career. And thank goodness for those young people who pushed back and said, no I am 22, I’m in my first job, and my employer absolutely expects that that is something that I can do in my day to day.
[00:12:58] And we heard that sentiment echoed again in all of those feedback sessions. employer definitions for durable skills and what competency looked like tended to be higher than the educator definitions for this skill set. And so, the framework, the Durable Skills Advantage framework that we’re about to publish has really uniquely captured that employer perspective to close the little bit of the language gap that exists.
[00:13:27] In terms of the pockets of excellence, in terms of the places that are doing this really well, it’s holding those up so that others are inspired and have the examples and the resources and the tools to help them get over that last little bit of the bridge that’s needed to truly prepare their students for workforce success.
[00:13:50] Tim Taylor: Yeah, that was such a compelling process and so, important to get the employer feedback and to build this from the employer’s perspective so that the education system Could educate to what the expectations were for, for individuals as they enter the workforce. I get so excited about some of this work. And in building that competency framework,
[00:14:08] I love sharing the anecdote around risk assessment. When we were talking to employers about the terms, the terminology and how we were building the framework and we were looking into how we define risk management. And we have somebody there from a manufacturing company and we had somebody there from an accounting company.
[00:14:23] And they both thought that there was no way that they could come up with the same definition around risk assessment. The manufacturing company said, you know, look, we’ve got big machines cogs and, analyzing risk is all about, knowing where your colleagues are and not to put your hand into moving cogs, even if there’s a stall in the machine.
[00:14:41] And then somebody from the accounting firm said no, it’s all about knowing whether or not you can move a number from one column to the other without causing a whole domino effect of other issues within a spreadsheet, for example. And fortunately we had such talented folks there moderating that they just called out and they said well, Is the skill, is the ability to assess risk the same and the application different?
[00:15:01] And it was one of those light bulb moments where all the employers in the room realized that the skill sets and these durable skills are so applicable across all of these, that this competency framework was really going to have legs because you could. Analyze your ability to assess risk, even if you wanted the individual to apply their risk assessment skills in many different settings.
[00:15:25] And I think that’s just so telling about how this work has gone and how so many folks have gotten onto the same page.
[00:15:31] Stephanie Short: I think that’s also such a big opportunity when we look back at the K 12 system. Honestly, the past decades, as employers have really engaged in kind of work based learning, career connected learning movements, the idea of pathways has really taken off. 12.
[00:15:53] And asking for different things. And so you have the hospitality industry saying everybody needs customer service. And you have the manufacturing industry saying everybody needs CTE. And you have engineering and IT folks really pushing STEM. And for K 12 leaders, with everything on their plates, especially post pandemic, that is just way too much to respond to all of those things.
[00:16:18] And so the beauty of getting to a core set of definitions for durable skills that apply across industries is that is something that K 12 can really rally around in terms of a core outcome and goal for those career connected learning pathways that also opens up so many more future opportunities for the students within those programs and within those schools.
[00:16:45] And so it’s been a uniting voice that I have seen time and time again, been so compelling for stakeholders on the ground. Of the hundreds of people who I have met and talked to about this work at different conferences and different events , I’ve had school leaders and educators come up to me in tears, just so excited that.
[00:17:08] The Durable Skills Research America Succeeds Completed validates the value of their program and validates their approach and what they’re doing that’s outside of those traditional grades. And so I think, in this vein of being the dog that caught the car, the luck of some really good timing and some thoughtfulness to clearly articulate and bring together these different movements that we’ve seen in the K 12 space under one common flag and common banner of durable skills. That’s all we have time for in this second episode of our three part series, . How can you help us in this next phase of developing Durable Skills? We’ll answer that in our next conversation.
[00:17:53] See you again!
[00:17:55] Alicia Boddy: Want to know more about Durable Skills and the ADDvantage Framework? Visit us at DurableSkillsAdvantage. org. That’s DurableSkillsAdvantage, as one word, dot org. There, you’ll learn the ways we’re helping individuals, communities, and businesses improve pathways from education to the workforce.
[00:18:18] and unlock career success. And you can download the Durable Skills Advantage Framework Starter Edition. Thank you for listening, and please stay tuned for an invitation to our next conversation.
