COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA
Department of Education

April 1, 2011

TO: Division Superintendents

FROM: Patricia I. Wright, Superintendent of Public Instruction

SUBJECT: Assessment for Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth

The Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE), in collaboration with the Career and Technical Education Consortium of States (CTECS), is pleased to announce the release of a new assessment, Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth Examination.  The Board of Education approved this credential as a “stand-alone” examination towards a student-selected verified credit at its February 17, 2011, meeting.  This online examination is designed to measure current workplace readiness skills that are a required component of each Career and Technical Education course.

Students may earn a student-selected verified credit by passing this new examination while earning a standard credit in a related career and technical education course.  Priority testing should be directed toward students who are graduating CTE completers.  Teachers are not allowed to take this examination.

The Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth Examination is an optional test that can be administered with any CTE course.  However, provisions in the Code of Virginia and federal legislation (Carl D. Perkins Act of 2006), governing technical skills attainment require local school boards and the Virginia Department of Education to report pass/fail data annually.  Consequently, this data will be shown as a new category item on the Virginia School Report Card.

Specific information for ordering and administering the Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth Examination can be found at a special CTECS Web site at:  www.ctecs.org/va-wrs-assessment.htm.

If you have any questions, please contact Gordon Creasy, specialist for industry certification and licensure, via e-mail at Gordon.creasy@doe.virginia.gov or by telephone at (804) 225-2057.

PIW/GC/LBH/sgj