National Guidelines, Standards and Reports that Tie to the Pennsylvania Career Education and Work Academic Standards

The Pennsylvania Career Education and Work Academic Standards have a direct link to a number of national guidelines, standards, and reports. The key supporting national linkages are identified below with descriptive excerpts from their websites.

National Career Development Guidelines

The National Career Development Guidelines (NCDG) are a framework for building and evaluating comprehensive career development programs for youth and adults in a variety of settings. The framework is organized into three domains, goals that support those domains, and indicators of mastery under each goal. The indicators are further grouped by learning stage. The three domains: Personal Social Development (PS), Educational Achievement and Lifelong Learning (ED) and Career Management (CM) describe content. Under each domain are goals (eleven in total). The goals define broad areas of career development competency. Under each goal in the framework are indicators of mastery that highlight the knowledge and skills needed to achieve that goal.

Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills

In 1990, the Secretary of Labor appointed a commission to determine the skills our young people need to succeed in the world of work. The commission's fundamental purpose was to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage employment. Although the commission completed its work in 1992, its findings and recommendations continue to be a valuable source of information for individuals and organizations involved in education and workforce development.

Entrepreneurship Standards

Created by the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education, fifteen standards organized into entrepreneurship skills, ready skills, and business skills, the standards provide a foundation for developing entrepreneurship programs. The toolkit created by the consortium provides downloadable resources that will also support the Career Education and Work Academic Standards in Pennsylvania.

National Business Education Standards

This collection of national standards is a forward-looking synthesis of what students should know and be able to do in business. The standards are based on a vision and a set of competencies designed to prepare students to become knowledgeable and ethical decision makers as they fulfill their roles as consumers, workers, and citizens. The National Standards for Business Education are based on the conviction that business education competencies are essential for all students.

National Standards for Family and Consumer Science Education

The national standards were developed by the National Association of State Administrators for Family and Consumer Sciences (NASAFACS) in partnership with VTECS. The curriculum standards organize the subject matter and processes of Family and Consumer Sciences Education, provide a strong and clear conceptualization of the field, and establish a common direction for program development and revision at the national, state, and local levels.

Funds for this Web site are provided under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-270) and from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Career and Technical Education.