In 2020 the State Board of Education added the ACT WorkKeys assessment to its accountability system as part of its goal to prepare students for college and careers. WorkKeys measures foundational skills needed in the workplace.
This came as communities across the state got their local schools to offer WorkKeys assessments so they could become ACT Work Ready Communities, a designation ACT says demonstrates they have aligned workforce development with economic development.
As used, WorkKeys assesses three areas – workplace documents (reading), applied math, and graphic literacy (locating information). WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificates (NCRCs) are issued at four levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Simplified, the lower bronze level indicates readiness for entry level jobs, silver readiness for blue/pink collar jobs, and gold readiness for white-collar jobs. The platinum level indicates a rare combination of cognitive skills.
Many industries have come to recognize WorkKeys as a useful screening tool for new hires. A number now require at least a silver level NCRC. Lex Taylor, chairman of the Taylor Group of Companies called the NCRC, “essential to our hiring process.”
So, how are Mississippi high school students doing on the WorkKeys assessment?
Statewide results were not available. However, The Montgomery Institute worked with economic developers in Choctaw, Kemper, Webster, and Winston Counties from 2018 to 2021 to get WorkKeys assessments in their schools (all four counties are now certified Work Ready Communities).
Results showed 696 high school seniors and a few juniors tested. Of these 13.5% did not score well enough to receive a bronze level NCRC; 35.4% achieved the bronze level; 32% achieved the silver level; 11.7% achieved the gold level; and 5.8% achieved the platinum level.
The Mississippi page at the ACT Work Ready Communities web site shows 174,571 NCRCs awarded in Mississippi from 2006 to 2022. This includes adults (working and out of work) as well as students. ACT did not publish the percentage that failed to achieve the bronze level; 31.7% achieved bronze; 48.2% achieved silver; 15.7% achieved gold; and 4.4% achieved platinum.
What this suggests is that 67% to 80% of students and adults are likely ready for entry-level and pink/blue collar jobs. But only 18% to 20% are likely ready for white collar and higher level jobs.
Further, employers will tell you the assessments do not really show job readiness, they show readiness to be trained for certain jobs.
As industries and businesses continue to integrate more and more automation and technology into their processes, higher and higher readiness-to-be-trained scores will be required to attract those jobs to Mississippi.
As you consider recently released school performance grades, realize that Mississippi has a good ways to go to offer modern industries and businesses a highly skilled workforce.
Then there is what to do with those who can’t score at the bronze level.
Only good to great schools, not adequate or lower, can assure a positive future for Mississippi.
“On with it, then, and finish the job!” – 2 Corinthians 8:11.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.
20 comments:
I must qualify for the bronze level because I could not understand this report.
Mississippi has been anti-education public for a long while.
And, now those who seek an autocracy are fear mongering to destroy what is left.
Then it will be restructured to create the needed bureaucratic system. Doctors , this will include you as well as other professionals. Those in finance and military operations and law enforcement and State controlled media will benefit.
The rest will be "re-educated" and despite skills be working as " servants and serfs. See Russia, see Brazil or Venezuela or the Philippines or North Korea.
9:43am I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say but sounds like you need to seek counseling.
Was this report really needed to tell us Mississippians that we have very few HS graduates that qualify for high level jobs. I'm pretty sure we already knew that.
Mississippi is King of Manure.
We have the most shit talkers…
We have the most shit kickers…
We have the most shit takers…
And the most shitheads per capita, on the planet!
There isn't any public education, not in Mississippi, not anywhere in the US. There's a government-run day care system overseen by government employees called "teachers." These government employees are teaching docility and compliance and not much of anything that will, as they proclaim as one of their goals, prepare youngsters for the workplace.
Not just MS, it’s everywhere in the US and territories. I get stuck with the 18-25 y/o SPEDs across this great nation, they are capable of checking their phones every 30 seconds, asking can we go home every 30 minutes, and wandering why they have to work.
10:48am, I can tell you've never lived anywhere where the public school system was excellent. Where people fight to buy homes and move into those districts, because the public schools are so strong, and feed the best colleges in the country.
The rest of the country isn't all like Mississippi and Tennessee and Kansas.
@12:13
You are correct. I have never lived in a magical place without diversity.
In Mississippi you are considered educated and job-ready if you have learned to say, "Yes-Suh" and "No-Suh". Blue collar? We don't need no stinkin' collar. A tee shirt will do!
Regardless of what you think, 10:48 is correct. We have an indoctrination system, not an education system.
The last thing those in power want is thinking people, and the more confused they are, the better. Good Lord, even now they're teaching that you may not know what gender you are.
If you want success in education, consolidate your school districts, get rid of the bloated administrations, pay your teachers like you respect them, and get back to the basics of education. Oh yeah, get the damn politics out of the schools.
The basics, you know ABC's, 123's, and everything that's associated with that. Make sure the students don't advance to the next level until ready. That's my opinion.
Accelerate Mississippi. Check out the website. Have not done a solitary damn thing but put out press releases. And pay multiple PhDs six figure salaries. None of the players on the website have done anything but work for government. Not their fault but I’m sick of paying for junk like this. How much do we already spend on K-12 to turn out kids who are not work-ready?
Parents should reinforce a practical work ethic not just with domestic chores but by requiring their spawn to work weekends and some school nights. State legislatures need to reduce teen minimum wage to 1/2 of adult wage. This can help enable restaurants to afford labor. Of course they can earn a higher wage as they become more valuable.
I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood and attended "wealthy" schools in affluent neighborhoods. Nevertheless, having a sport (or several), a job, a savings account and an occasional girlfriend were positive dimensions to be proud of.
I have seen Jackson teens working as clerks in various retail and blue collar settings and they have been almost always courteous and attentive, with many obvious workplace skills. This positive mindset is the outcome of accomplishing a job and earning a paycheck.
The bottom tier could easily become syndicated columnists.
3:45 good point about the number of school districts in our state. Instead of 141(?) we should have 82.
Wish Shad would do his job and tell us the savings if we were to do this.
This article is so fraught with inaccuracies, speculation and mumbo-jumbo that I barely made it to the end. Then along comes 9:43 who totally made me forget what I wanted to say. In fact his post made my teeth hurt. Of what education system can he possibly be a product?
I do believe 9:43 may be what is called a social media bot. I have noticed several posts recently that weren't just right.
Then again, I may be totally wrong. It's really hard to tell these days with all the crazy opinions around.
@PittPanther, 10:48 here. The last figures I saw had US high school academic performance placing twenty-something out of about 25 "developed" Western countries. Sure, anybody can assert (as you have) that there are excellent school districts out there. But your few (unnamed) bright spots don't belie the simple fact that US public education in general is inadequate and what I said it is, a day care operation administered by government employees.
And tell me, please, just what do these fights to buy homes look like? Are they swinging fists like they were in the bleachers at an Ole Mess ballgame?
Maybe, rather than attempting to be an expert on Jackson stuff, the expatriot [Pitty-Pander-Defending-ACC-Champs] should focus more on this sort of thing ongoing in his home state:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02wtHKcg9YuauzZbcze2Vy1B2PKDB3GwGT5sbxggNr2CoqLZKuUyUutUmh2mmCgkhDl&id=100069859805231¬if_id=1664978314933055¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif
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