1 of 16

Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards

Community of Practice

Skills for Success:

The Why Behind Wisconsin's Career Readiness Standards

Module 4:

Future Focused

Career Readiness

2 of 16

Objectives

Understand the Development of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards�

Explore Equity as a Core Tenet of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards

Revisit the Imperative for Centering Systemic Change �

"Let’s begin by reviewing the objectives for this module.

First, we will understand the development of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards. This will provide important context about how these standards were created to address the evolving needs of students, educators, and the workforce.

Next, we will explore equity as a core tenet of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards. Equity is woven throughout these standards, ensuring that every student, regardless of their background or circumstances, has access to the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.

Finally, we will revisit the imperative for centering systemic change. This discussion will focus on the role of career readiness in driving meaningful and sustainable improvements within our educational systems to better prepare students for their futures.

These objectives will guide our learning and conversations throughout this module, so let’s get started!"

�

3 of 16

Where Should Career Readiness Take Place?

Academic and Career Planning

Process

Career Pathways Programs

CTE Courses

Dual Enrollment

Work-based Learning

Industry-recognized Certifications

CTSOs

ALL COURSES

Math

Science

English

Social Studies

Art/Music

World Languages

Physical Education

and more!

Out of School Time Programs

4 of 16

Future Readiness Activity

Review the four stages (Know, Explore, Plan, Go) from the graphic and reflect on where your own students (or class) currently fall with activities.

What stage do you feel most confident about?

What stage do you find most challenging to support?

Do all students receive the same experiences?

What does this look like K-12?

District Self-Assessment (ACP Components)

5 of 16

From Floor to Ceiling: Elevating Educational Rigor

Hold the Floor:

Our E4E Plan

Raise the Ceiling:

The WCRS

The Features:

Academic & Career Planning
Career & Technical Education
Dual-Enrollment
Career-Based Learning
Work-Based Learning

As we discussed earlier, our baseline standard is the Education for Employment (E4E) plan, which ensures that every district meets the minimum compliance standards set by the state legislature. This guarantees that foundational programming goals are met for every student, ensuring that all students receive career and academic planning that sets the stage for future success.

E4E provides the legislative foundation and ensures that students are introduced to career readiness in a structured way. However, the E4E plan is only the starting point. To truly prepare students for the evolving demands of the workforce, we need to do more than hold the floor. We need to raise the ceiling.

Through enhanced ACP (Academic and Career Planning) and CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs, students can engage in personalized and technical learning that connects directly to their career goals. These programs help students strengthen their career readiness by building practical skills, exploring real-world work opportunities, and linking classroom content to the competencies needed in today’s workforce.

Using the WCRS—Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards—districts are empowered to push beyond compliance. The WCRS provides a guiding vision and serves as the blueprint for elevating our programs to a higher level of rigor. By aligning with the competencies and dispositions outlined in WCRS, we can help students develop leadership, collaboration, and problem-solving skills critical for success not just in post-secondary education but in their future careers.

The WCRS helps us ensure that districts are not just meeting minimum benchmarks but instead raising the ceiling, setting higher goals for optimizing programming, increasing rigor, and maximizing student achievement. This alignment between ACP, CTE, and WCRS allows educators to provide a more comprehensive, future-ready education for all students. Our goal is to create an environment where students are prepared to thrive in a rapidly changing workforce, with both academic and career-readiness skills integrated seamlessly into their learning experience.

�

6 of 16

Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards

Life Ready Skills

Learning Ready Skills

Career Ready Skills

7 of 16

WCRS Priorities

We believe that career readiness skills must reflect what both employers and students need today as well as tomorrow.
We believe in meeting students where they are at in order to provide each individual student with the learning and support they need, when they need it, and how they need it.
We believe that career readiness standards must be rooted in equity.
We believe that words matter and will pay attention to language and will think deeply about our audience as we craft these standards.
We recognize that many of the career readiness skills can be applied to other contexts (life ready skills). However, we believe that the scope for this set of standards needs to stay focused on careers.

8 of 16

WCRS Writing Team Members

Writing Committee Members

Chair:

Michael Trimberger, Superintendent at the Random Lake School District

DPI Liaisons:

Kevin Anderson, Science Education Consultant
Pam Delfosse, World Language and International Education Consultant
Andrea Donegan, School Counseling Consultant
Alicia Reinhard, Special Education Transition and Graduation Consultant

Committee Members

Leslie Bleskachek, Hudson School District
Joanne Charon, Racine Unified School District
Marisa Dawson, Racine Unified School District
Ellie Hartman, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development - Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
Clintel Hasan, Milwaukee Succeeds

Committee Members (continued)

Ann Hyra, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
Christopher Koeppen, Beloit Turner School District
Mary Maderish, CESA #12
Scott Manley, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce
Dan Mella, Plymouth School District & Governor’s Council on Workforce Investment Representative
Tommie Myles, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development - Youth Apprenticeship
Quentin Prince, Journey House
Britta Rotering, School District of LaCrosse
Steve Schneider, Sheboygan Area School District
Christine Schultz, Junior Achievement of Wisconsin
Brian Seguin, Menomonie Area School District
Jatinder Sihra, Unytus
Marci Waldron-Kuhn, CESA #7
Aaron Williams, Kenosha Unified School District

9 of 16

Creating Coherence in Career Readiness

Creating Coherence

Wisconsin	National and International
Wisconsin Redefining Ready Academic and Career Planning Requirements Social Emotional Learning Competencies Four Domains of Global Competence Wisconsin Standards for Information Technology Literacy Personal Financial Literacy Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Education Framework	Common Career Technical Core: Career Ready Practices ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors Asia Society Center for Global Education: Global Leadership Performance Outcomes Fundamental STEM Skills Decision Education Standards

The Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards align with several other national and international best practices, ensuring coherence and continuity across all levels of career readiness. By connecting to frameworks such as Wisconsin Redefining Ready, Academic and Career Planning (ACP) requirements, Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies, and the Common Career Technical Core, we’re ensuring that the WCRS are not an isolated set of standards.

Instead, they integrate seamlessly into broader educational goals, connecting academic and career planning with global competence, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and more. This means that WCRS help prepare students for a wide range of future challenges, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in a rapidly changing world.

10 of 16

Summary of Changes

Wisconsin Common Career Technical Standards (2013)	Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards (2023)
Only integrated into CTE courses - so not all students had the opportunity to develop these skills. Did not exist as a stand alone set of standards - only found as a section of CTE standards. Therefore, WCCTS was often overlooked. Pre-ACP and Redefining Ready	Designed to be integrated across all curricular areas - so all students can develop these skills. Not every class needs to include every standard. Some standards may show up in ACP activities. Alignment to the ACP process and the Redefining Ready framework Supports a district’s portrait of a graduate/graduate profile Brings together multiple sets of state and national standards, skill sets, and competencies

The Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards represent a significant evolution from the older Wisconsin Common Career Technical Standards (WCCTS) from 2013. Previously, career readiness skills were primarily integrated into Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses, limiting access for many students. Not all students had the opportunity to develop these vital skills.

With the new WCRS, however, we’ve designed them to be integrated across all curricular areas, so every student has the opportunity to develop these competencies. Not every class needs to cover every standard, but the goal is to ensure that career readiness is embedded throughout students' educational experiences, even in non-CTE subjects.

These changes align with the ACP process and Redefining Ready framework, making WCRS a tool that can support districts in developing comprehensive student outcomes, such as those outlined in their portrait of a graduate or graduate profiles.

11 of 16

Ground Your System Change

11

Schools provide varying types of supports with differing levels of intensity to proactively and responsibly adjust to the needs of the whole child. These include the knowledge, skills, and habits learners need for success beyond high school, including developmental, academic, behavioral, social, and emotional skills.

12 of 16

Equity in the EMLSS Framework

EQUITY is at the center of the framework and is embedded into all other key features.

We want to challenge and change inequitable access, opportunity, and outcomes experienced by learners currently underserved in Wisconsin.

13 of 16

Equity in Career Readiness

Equity means every learner has access to the resources and rigor they need at the right moment in their education, despite race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, family background, or family income (CCSSO, 2017).

Achieving equity in Wisconsin schools demands a bold commitment to deliberately address these unacceptable outcomes and is the reason equity is situated at the center of this framework.

An intentional focus on equity accounts for and adapts to the diversity of learners and families served by Wisconsin schools. To become equitable, schools and educators engage in a journey of deep and honest examination of who they are, their beliefs and assumptions about the learners and families they serve, as well as what they value and affirm.

14 of 16

ACP: The Vision

Are We Living Our ACP Vision?

15 of 16

Elevator Speech Activity: �Advocating for Career Readiness with WCRS

Objective: Create a persuasive, 1-minute elevator speech explaining why career readiness is crucial for today’s students and how the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards (WCRS) can help address this need.

Prompt: Imagine you’re in an elevator with a school administrator, district leader, or community stakeholder who is unfamiliar with the importance of career readiness. Add to your elevator speech, using points 4-5:

The Impact of Student Disengagement on Gen Z & Gen Alpha students
How Career Readiness can Support Gen Z & Gen Alpha now by re-engaging them through relevant and meaningful pedagogy shifts
Why Career Readiness is Essential for Gen Z & Gen Alpha’s futures
Our Current Reality As a System includes the following activities, features, offerings, and programs that support our students’ access to Career Readiness.
How the WCRS Provides Vision and Purpose to align our current programming to elevate student readiness, community outcomes, and equity within our system.

16 of 16

Optimistic Closure

“For our students’ sake, to prepare them for the future, we can’t look a the world through today’s glasses, we must use our tomorrow glasses.”

Matt Miller (AI for Educators, page 8)

As we bring today’s session to a close, I want to leave you with a powerful reminder:

"For our students’ sake, to prepare them for the future, we can’t look at the world through ‘today’s glasses.’ We must use our ‘tomorrow glasses.’"

The work we’re doing now, the standards we’re implementing, and the changes we’re pushing for are all about preparing our students for a world that doesn’t exist yet—a future where the skills we equip them with today will make all the difference.

Let’s continue to envision that future and remain committed to building a system that truly prepares every student for the careers, communities, and lifelong learning that await them.

Thank you for joining us for Module 4 of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards Community of Practice. Throughout Modules 1-4, we’ve centered ourselves around the why and the how of the development of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards. By now, you and your team should be feeling grounded and confident in the purpose and passion behind the evolution of career readiness in Wisconsin, and fortified in embracing the impact the WCRS can have in your system.

We look forward to having you participate in Module 5, in which we’ll be exploring the “what”, or the specific details of the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards.