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	SCANS and Mathematics­ Supporting the Transition from Schools to Careers
	Arnold Packer
	Johns Hopkins University

This essay addresses two related questions: What kinds of tasks will support the learning of "SCANS" skills described by the report entitled What Work Requires of Schools (United States Department of Labor, 1991)? And will use of such tasks facilitate student success in making the transition from school to career?

     The charge of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) was to examine the demands of the workplace and whether students were being prepared to meet those demands. SCANS commissioned a variety of studies. Six special panels examined jobs ranging from manufacturing to government employment. Researchers interviewed a wide range of workers. The commission itself met with business owners, employers, union representatives, and workers. In summarizing the findings of these studies, the SCANS report describes five sets of competencies and a three-part foundation of skills and attributes essential for all students, both those going directly to work and those planning further education. The commission believes that, in line with current research in cognitive science, the eight requirements should be taught in context rather than as abstract concepts and skills to be applied later.

     The five competencies are

• Planning Skills, such as allocating time, money, space, and staff;

• Interpersonal Skills, such as negotiating and teaching;

• Information Skills, such as acquiring, evaluating, interpreting, and communicating information;

• Technology Skills, such as selecting, using, and fixing technology; and

• Systems Skills, such as understanding, improving, and designing systems.

     For example, an entry-level restaurant worker should be able to estimate costs of replacing equipment and justify necessary expenses in writing. In order to plan where the equipment should be placed, the worker should be capable of reading blueprints and manufacturers' installation requirements. Such a worker might need interpersonal skills to explain technology or scheduling to a new employee, for example. A necessary information skill might include being able to use a spreadsheet program to estimate the costs of food required for different menus. And the worker should be able to analyze and modify the system, determining the average and maximum amount of time a customer waits between ordering and receiving an appetizer, and between receiving an appetizer and the entree.

     In this example, aspects of the three-part foundation of attributes and skills are intertwined with the five competencies. The three-part foundation consists of

• Basic Skills, such as reading, writing, and computing;

• Thinking Skills, such as visualization, reasoning, and the ability to solve problems; and

• Personal Qualities, such as perseverance, politeness, self-esteem, and empathy.

     In the restaurant scenario above, the worker needs to read blueprints, write a justification, and compute costs. Planning where to place equipment requires processing the information from the blueprints as well as the information given about the dimensions of the equipment. Throughout this scenario, politeness is necessary, in directing workers where to place equipment, in explaining matters to a new worker, and, of course, in dealing with customers.

     What Work Requires of Schools describes these attributes and skills as both extensive and enduring. They are extensive because they are needed at all stages of careers of all kinds, including careers that require post-graduate education, and they are enduring because these skills have been needed for centuries and will be needed for centuries to come. Furthermore, the report claims that any authentic workplace task requiring a high level of effort and perseverance will necessarily involve one or more of the five competencies.

     When designing tasks to serve the SCANS goals, one needs to consider tasks likely to be encountered in the workplace. From the SCANS perspective, a good task is one that a million or more workers in the U.S. economy are being paid to solve. (This is not to disparage tasks that students will need to solve in roles outside the workplace, such as citizenship or parenting. But in SCANS, workplace issues predominate.)

     The most important worker in the educational system is the student. Recent surveys of jobs by the SCANS Commission, by American College Testing, and by the American Institute for Research (for O*NET) indicate that students need a firm grasp of applied algebra--not a vague understanding of calculus (Packer, 1997). They can always look up algorithms and formulas in order to solve a quadratic equation or complete a square. Even if students can recall them to pass their final exams, they are likely to forget many algorithms and formulas two weeks later. What they need to demonstrate on exams is that they know how to bring mathematics to bear on SCANS-like problems such as budgeting and scheduling.

     The issue has become more important because President Clinton has called for a national 8th grade mathematics assessment. Should the test pose mathematical "puzzles" that are interesting to the mathematically inclined? Or should test items have a clear relationship to problems that students are likely to encounter outside the schoolroom walls?

     The SCANS goals require more variety in the circumstances under which tasks are done. The traditional problem archetypes, such as canoe problems and train problems, also have a traditional format--they are done individually in 10 minutes or less. In contrast, the SCANS competencies of teaching, negotiating, interpreting, and communicating require tasks that can only be solved collectively by groups. All of these changes will help schools reflect the needs of the workplace with greater accuracy and ease the transition from schools to careers.

References

United States Department of Labor. Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. (1991).

What work requires of schools: A SCANS report for America 2000. Washington, DC: Author.

Packer, A. (1997).

Mathematical Competencies That Employers Expect. In L.A. Steen (Ed.), Why numbers count: Quantitative literacy for tomorrow's America, (pp. 137-154). New York: College Entrance Examination Board.

Arnold Packer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He was Executive Director of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) and co-author of Workforce 2000. He has served as Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor, and as first Chief Economist at the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. He is a licensed (and practicing) engineer in New York and California. His Ph.D. in Economics is from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.