HS+34+SLC+16+CC

Career Clusters A Career Cluster is a grouping of occupations and broad industries based on commonalities. The sixteen Career Clusters provide an organizing tool for schools, smaller learning communities, academies, and magnet schools. Technological advances and global competition have transformed the nature of work. Tomorrow's jobs will require more knowledge, better skills, and more flexible workers than ever before. Tomorrow's workers must be prepared to change jobs and careers several times, continually updating their knowledge and skills. To prepare today's students for tomorrow, schools are working to help students achieve in challenging subjects. One key approach to this goal is to provide students with relevant contexts for learning. Career clusters link what students learn in school to the knowledge and skills they need for success in college and careers. The organization of courses into the various clusters helps students identify pathways from secondary school to two- and four-year colleges, graduate school, and the workplace. Students are then able to learn in school what they can do in the future. This connection to future goals motivates students to work harder and enroll in more rigorous courses.  21st Century Skills Mastery of core subjects and 21st century themes is essential for students in the 21st century. Core subjects include English, reading or language arts, world languages, arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography, history, government and civics. We believe schools must move beyond a focus on basic competency in core subjects to promoting understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects: (a) global awareness, (b) financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy, (c) civic literacy, and (d) health literacy.  Learning and innovation skills are what separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the 21st century and those who are not. They include (a) creativity and innovation, (b) critical thinking and problem solving, and (c) communication and collaboration.  People in the 21st century live in a technology and media-driven environment, marked by access to an abundance of information, rapid changes in technology tools and the ability to collaborate and make individual contributions on an unprecedented scale. To be effective in the 21st century, citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills, such as (a) information literacy, (b) media literacy, and (c) ICT (information, communications, and technology) literacy.  Today’s life and work environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous attention to developing adequate life and career skills, such as (a) flexibility and adaptability, (b) initiative and self-direction, (c) social and cross-cultural skills, (d) productivity and accountability, and (e) leadership and responsibility. (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2004)
 * ** Smaller Learning Communities: prparing future-Ready graduates ** ||