BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C.–The South Carolina State Department of Education recently announced the results of each district’s WorkKeys assessments. According to school officials, Berkeley County students received more National Career Readiness Certificates (NCRC) than students in the state and across the country.
Eighty-nine percent of Berkeley County School District students who took WorkKeys earned a National Career Readiness Certificate, compared to the state’s 87.9 percent and the nation’s 87 percent.
“Having close to 90 percent of our students scoring high enough on the WorkKeys to be credentialed is a great start for us. One of the benefits we have with assessing all 11th graders in WorkKeys is that it will allow us an additional year to work with the students who didn’t receive a credential,” said Berkeley County School District Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Kevin O’Gorman.
BCSD students who completed Career and Technical Education programs within the district have had the opportunity to take the WorkKeys assessment for the last five years, even before the 2015 state mandate that all 11th grade students take the assessment.
ACT WorkKeys consists of three core assessments: Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics and Locating Information. The ACT NCRC is awarded to students based on their WorkKeys scores. There are four levels of certificates students may receive depending on their scores: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
The breakdown of certificates earned by BCSD students is below.
– Bronze: 28 percent (scores of level three or higher on all three core exams)
– Silver: 42 percent (scores of level four or higher on all three core exams)
– Gold: 18.6 percent (scores of level five or higher on all three core exams)
– Platinum: .3 percent (scores of level six or higher on all three core exams)
Berkeley County School District’s Director of Career and Technical Education, Tana Lee, said, “Having reviewed our scores and made comparisons to other districts and states, I am elated to see how our students measure up in the Career Ready realm. From the assessment, students received certificates validating possession of certain essential skills important across a range of jobs. Employers, career seekers, economic developers, and educators can use the certificate as a common language to improve the quality of the workforce. The skill levels are meaningful to career seekers, educators, and employers. Berkeley County School District is working hard to ensure our students are prepared for the future.”
WorkKeys is a job skills assessment system that measure “real-world” skills that employers believe are critical to job success. To earn an ACT National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), students who take the WorkKeys assessment must successfully complete three ACT WorkKeys tests: Applied Mathematics, Locating Information, and Reading for Information (www.ACT.org).
WorkKeys tests measure several different work skills, including the ability to complete basic math operations, read and understand documents common in the workplace, identify information in graphics, and solve more difficult work-related math problems.
Other portions of the assessments measure how well a student can determine the importance of written information to work tasks, and the ability to apply information obtained from graphics to work problems. The three core assessments are Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics and Locating Information (www.ACT.org).
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