As states move to adopt college- and career-ready accountability systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act, many educators and researchers argue that assessments will not be able to adequately measure the 鈥渃areer鈥� part of that equation.
鈥淥ver the years, we鈥檝e built tests that measure better and better whether a student will be able to get at least a C in their first year of college鈥攂ut they explain almost nothing about whether a student will succeed in an occupation,鈥� said Anthony Carnevale, the director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Center on Education and the Workforce.
Career assessments typically focus on the occupations that provide high enough wages to support a family and require some postsecondary training, though usually not a bachelor鈥檚 degree. But Carnevale and other researchers have found that the material on career-readiness tests, like the U.S. military鈥檚 Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, and the civilian WorkKeys run by ACT Inc., still overlap significantly with the academic content of college-readiness tests like the ACT or SAT, which focus on early-college content, rather than content geared toward the workplace.
Even the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly dubbed 鈥渢he nation鈥檚 report card,鈥� was not found to be particularly aligned to the types of reading and math skills needed on the job in eight major job clusters, such as health care.
鈥淭he whole impetus by states and the feds, and all of the discussion, has been around college readiness and what skills were needed for that,鈥� said Wayne Camara, the senior vice president of research at ACT.
鈥淐ollege- and career-readiness is used almost interchangeably to cover everyone, but there is a paucity of evidence that those assessments bear any relation to careers, and they鈥檙e at a level of abstraction that means there鈥檚 often very little utility鈥� in using the results to gauge a student鈥檚 likelihood of success in the workplace, as opposed to the academic field, Camara said.
Some countries, such as Switzerland, integrate their career and academic training more throughout the elementary and secondary grades and have more integrated assessment of different skills, too, according to Robert Schwartz, a professor emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied international career-education systems. In the United States, he said, 鈥渨e still think of assessments as academic鈥攌ids鈥� ability to tell you what they have learned, rather than reflect what they have learned by doing.鈥�
By contrast, the Swiss system includes career-skills testing in regular classrooms, skill-focused industry centers, and required job internships.
鈥淕enerally, there is much more focus on assessing the underlying critical-thinking and problem-solving skills,鈥� Schwartz said. 鈥淭hey focus on deep, transferable skills, because students switch tracks regularly.鈥�
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, a few states are starting to incorporate more accountability for career-related skills, but David Conley, the director of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of Oregon, said the current crop of career tests do not focus enough on those underlying skills. 鈥淭he career space is completely different from the college space, and people haven鈥檛 really come to grips鈥� with how to test it, he said.
The ASVAB and WorkKeys have each been used for decades with students and adult job seekers, but in the past five years both tests have updated their assessments and ramped up testing among high school students in efforts to match evolving occupations鈥攑articularly in the technology sector鈥攁nd meet the needs of states interested in 鈥渃ollege and career readiness.鈥�
Evolving Assessments
Four states require and fully pay for all students to take WorkKeys: Alabama, Michigan, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Another nine pay for the test for specific groups of students, such as those in career-tech courses, or they allow districts or students to choose between it or another test. The test has grown from about 700,000 participants a year in 2000 to more than 2 million a year today.
The ASVAB has been required for all students entering the military since 1976, but it also is given to high schoolers across states and is an option for high school graduation in states including Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, Minnesota, New Mexico, and New Jersey. It, too, has seen growth recently, with 600,000 to 700,000 total test-takers each year for the past five years.
While both tests gauge basic math and reading skills, the ASVAB also gauges students鈥� electronics, automotive, and mechanical understanding, as well as their ability to assemble objects. WorkKeys recently added measures of 鈥済raphical literacy"鈥攂eing able to draw information from charts and data鈥攁nd updated about 1,000 occupations it uses to determine skill levels.
鈥淧robably the biggest challenge is going to be to keep up with how jobs change. College hasn鈥檛 changed that dramatically in the last 40 years, particularly for students who attend brick-and-mortar schools. But jobs have changed dramatically, ... and the workplace now demands continuous improvement of skills,鈥� ACT鈥檚 Camara said. 鈥淲e can only hope to measure a small portion; we can never measure all of the behaviors and values required by a particular company.鈥�
Bringing in Business
Michigan is one of a handful of states trying to incorporate career-readiness assessments more directly into its accountability system. All students in that state must create an education development plan in 7th grade, including career interests and long-term goals, and update it every year to prompt discussions of what skills and experience students will need to acquire the job they want.
Before graduating, all high school students must take WorkKeys in addition to the College Board鈥檚 SAT and Michigan鈥檚 own science and social studies tests; participation is part of schools鈥� required accountability reporting, but the actual scores are not.
"[WorkKeys] provides a balance to the SAT, which is really driven by four-year university admissions,鈥� said Brandy Johnson, the executive director of the Michigan College Access Network, a nonprofit advocacy group. 鈥淚t is symbolically really powerful for the state to say we want students to be college ready, ... but we also know there are other types of skills that are extremely important in both college and workplace settings that we want to acknowledge.鈥�
The nonprofit Talent 2025 is a coalition of 13 school districts, businesses, and community groups in western Michigan that is trying to connect school assessments to industry needs. For example, in the past two years, the group has increased from 50 to 250 the number of employers who ask for career-assessment scores like WorkKeys on job applications.
鈥淲e鈥檙e working to promote the [career] test and certificates as another piece of information employers use to assess a candidate for a job, just as you would review education or related job experiences,鈥� said Kevin Stotts, the president of Talent 2025. 鈥淓veryone understands the value of an ACT or SAT score, but we haven鈥檛 really done a good job of explaining the value of a career assessment.鈥�
Next-Generation Career Tests?
Debates around the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act鈥攐verdue since 2006鈥攈ave included proposals to use state longitudinal student databases to track career outcomes, such as whether a student ends up working in the field for which he or she studied. If accepted in the next version of the federal law, the measures could help researchers devise better indicators of career readiness.
Some of Talent 2025鈥檚 districts are developing digital transcripts that allow students to include scores from an array of tests鈥攖he SAT and the International Baccalaureate as well as WorkKeys or industry-certificate exams鈥攚ith other indicators that employers have considered useful, such as extracurricular activities and experiences with team projects or problem-solving.
Stephen Watson, the director of Navy selection and classification, who helped develop the ASVAB, said he expects the next generation of career assessments to include more of those 鈥渙ther indicators鈥� that can point to a student鈥檚 motivation and problem-solving approach to work.
The armed forces have already been exploring better ways to measure students鈥� interests in certain fields. They鈥檙e also experimenting with simulations designed to test how students would approach specific experiences at work, such as teaming up with colleagues or tackling a crisis. 鈥淲e have to predict what matters,鈥� Watson said, 鈥渁nd what matters is how successful people feel in their jobs, how successful they are in their jobs, and how long they stick around.鈥�
