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I'm excited about a National organization, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php founded in 2002 by the US Department of Education in partnership with several well known organizations. The foundation partners education with business, community and government leaders to position educators with 21st century skills necessary to ensure students are equipped to be "effective citizens, workers and leaders in the 21st century." I discovered the Web site while completing an assignment for one of my graduate classes at Walden University. The site offers many tools, resources, upcoming events and related news and information on the different states already participating.

I often find myself in discussion regarding the need for schools to mirror 21st century business practices. I had not previously been exposed to the orgainzation, but found the mission statement to echo the sentiments of many teachers and non-teachers alike. We teach students how to read and write, but aren't doing enough to prepare them for real life corproate America. I have not seen anything to this magnitude to prepare children for their future career and feel this is a must needed initiative, especially in my school.

My wife works for a fortune 200 corporation and my day to day life as a school teacher is a complete 180 from her day at the office. In hearing some of my frustrations with the politics and administration of the school, she would say they really need to treat schools more like a business. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a big push for education to mirror and partner with the businesses of the 21st century. Many of the 21st Century themes and skills rang familiar to the conversations I've had with my wife about corporate expectations and measurements. As a VP of Sales, much of her performance is measured against results and behavioral leadership skills up to and including a large percentage of her pay.

The site spoke much about the skills that students need to possess to succeed in life and in a career in the 21st century, but lacked information and ideas on how to incent teachers much the way businesses compensate their leaders on their performance in influencing these necessary skills. I think this is critical in order to effectively incorporate the themes and skills into day to day lessons. Also our school curriculum is lacking tools and resources on many of the key themes and skills and more awareness is needed. Students will be ill prepared for life situations and career if more is not done to develop their professional future. As a contemporary educator, every lesson should deliver experience and life skills for our future leaders, if we aren't preparing them for essential basic life lessons, in many cases no one else will either.