Heavy emphasis on “hard skills” leaves children unprepared for the real “tests” in life.
Mr. Gates,
Working with grade 7-12 students for more than two decades, and as a summer youth employment counselor for 10 years, it has been my experience that a lack of soft skills and virtues (perseverance, ambition, responsibility, self-confidence, self-discipline, patience, initiative, integrity, empathy, leadership, maturity…) has directly contributed to declining student achievement and performance in the classroom and on the job. While mastery of content and literacy skills are important for career and college readiness, these performance standards are too often trumped or canceled out when a student or employee lacks a work ethic, emotional intelligence, and has not developed a personal code of conduct. One of the underlying premises of CCSS appears to be that students who cannot read and write on an advanced college level are destined to be unsuccessful in life. Not everyone can be an advanced reader, no matter how hard they try. Do proponents of CCSS really believe that the 15 to 20% (NICHD) of our population with language-based