Academics, Professional Skills, and Critical Thinking—What Drives Students’ Economic Mobility?

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

PK-12 schools are meant to prepare all students for success later in life, yet we know surprisingly little about the skills and competencies that drive that success. We all want children to grow up to be successful, thriving adults. Parents, educators, and policymakers advise kids to go to school, get good grades, and graduate. That good advice is not enough. We need to know which PK–12 skills and competencies boost students’ long-term success and how the contexts students exist in, such as the school system or their neighborhood, influence those outcomes and skill development. Three studies from the Student Upward Mobility Initiative  (SUMI) will provide novel evidence on a range of different academic, “noncognitive,” and career preparedness skills that may be key advancing our understanding of the relationship between education, skill development, and economic mobility.

The first paper uses statewide Maryland data to quantify whether specific components in math, reading, science, and social studies—using subscores from state exams—predict postsecondary attainment and economic outcomes. The second interrogates the skills students gain through a highly structured work-study program and aligned curriculum across the Cristo Rey network to understand the skills employers value and those that lead to positive long-term outcomes. The third paper uses Massachusetts item level to develop measures of critical thinking—a skill noted widely by employers as crucial for their employees.

Together, these papers examine different types of skills that schools aim to cultivate, yet little is known about how they can be better measured and how they matter to move students out of poverty later in their lives.

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Karishma Furtado, Urban Institute

Discussant

• Roddy Theobald, American Institutes for Research

Organizer

• Maggie Reeves, Urban Institute

Individual Presentations

• Skills that Pay: Unpacking Subject-Specific Competencies to Predict Economic Wellbeing - Presenting Author: George Wayne Zuo, RAND Corporation

• Leveraging Professional Skills to Increase Economic Mobility and Racial Equity - Presenting Author: Shaun M Dougherty, Boston College

• Do Critical Thinking Skills Predict Student Upward Mobility? - Presenting Author: John Wang, University of Virginia

• The Role of Education-Industry Match in College Earnings Premia - Presenting Author: Lauren Cathleen Russell, University of Pennsylvania