College & Career Ready?

Each person has a unique story. The push right now is to get our adult learners college and career ready. Colleges and employers often say it's the soft-skills (punctuality, attendance, working with others, telephone and email etiquette) that are needed when a student graduates from a program and enters the college or career field. What is the best use of resources to get someone college and career ready? Where do we find them? How do we motivate students? Who can come away being a more productive member of society upon exiting a program than when they entered?

To the government, it's a (often times arbitrary) gain on a standardized test, showing growth in the early 2000's world. To the teacher, it's the student that moves on to college. To the student, it might mean moving into a new phase of his/her life and finally completing the high school diploma that he/she has been working on since 2005 or before. 

What is college and career readiness, besides a buzzword of the 2010's? Sure, in adult education and literacy we have College & Career Readiness Standards. In showing competency in these standards, one can deduct that a person is then ready to go to college or ready to go seek a career; however, these standards address the academic needs, not the soft-skills.  Therefore, are we really helping adult learners create a bridge to employment?

With the implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act where several entities are working together to help working age people find the best path to employment perhaps we'll actually be making our customers college and career ready.