Written by: Melody Su
| We’re inviting educators from across the country to pilot test resources from the forthcoming K–12 Durable Skills Framework. Whether you’re a classroom teacher, instructional coach, counselor, or youth program staff member, this is your chance to shape tools that will help learners build durable skills — the real-world skills they need to thrive in life, learning, and work. This is an opportunity with low commitment and high impact — and your voice will help shape what comes next. Sign up for the pilot here |
When thousands of educators downloaded the Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework after its January 2024 launch, it signaled something unmistakable: educators are hungry for practical, trusted guidance on durable skills. Communication, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration—these are the foundation for economic mobility and lifelong success in our rapidly changing world.
The signal from educators launched us on an ambitious journey in May 2025: creating a comprehensive K-12 Durable Skills Framework that would translate employer-validated skills into age-appropriate language and learning experiences from kindergarten through graduation.
Putting Educators and Students at the Center
Rather than developing resources in isolation and hoping they’d work in real learning environments, we’ve embraced a human-centered design approach that places educators and learners at the heart of every decision. Our goal is to build practical tools that solve real problems educators face every day.
Our research team engaged subject matter experts across three intensive convenings, bringing together voices from education, industry, academia, and child/adolescent development. But the real magic happens in classrooms and programs across the country, where hundreds of pilot educators are testing, refining, and reshaping the resources based on what actually works with their learners. This iterative process—test, learn, refine, repeat—ensures that every tool we create serves a genuine purpose.
Tools That Empower Learner Ownership
One of our most exciting developments has been creating resources that put learners in the driver’s seat of their own skill development. Our “I can…” statements transform abstract concepts into concrete, achievable goals that learners can understand and track. For example, when a third-grader sees “I can share my ideas clearly with my classmates” posted in their classroom, communication becomes tangible and personal.
These statements are grounded in research on learner self-assessment and metacognition. By helping learners recognize and name the skills they’re developing, we’re helping to foster a deeper understanding of their own growth journey. This awareness is crucial for building the self-directed learning capabilities that will serve them throughout their lives.
Connecting Classroom Learning to Real-World Impact
We’ve also developed reflection prompts and portfolio tools that help students draw connections between their classroom work and the world beyond school walls. They are carefully crafted opportunities for students to recognize how the collaboration skills they use in a science project translate to teamwork in any future career, or how the creativity they apply in art class builds innovation capabilities valued across industries.
Our practical application examples show educators how to weave durable skills development into subjects they’re already teaching. A history lesson becomes an opportunity to build critical thinking through source analysis. A math problem-set transforms into collaboration practice through peer problem-solving. Literature discussions naturally develop communication skills through structured dialogue.
Perhaps most importantly, we’re creating opportunities for community and family engagement. When parents understand the durable skills their children are developing, they can reinforce this learning at home. When local employers see students building the competencies they need, they become invested partners in education. This framework is about creating a community-wide commitment to preparing young people for success.
The Path Forward
As we continue this collaborative journey, every piece of educator feedback, every learner response, and every community insight shapes the final framework. This isn’t a framework that America Succeeds just crafted on its own; it’s a framework built by and for the education community, validated through the authentic experiences of educators and learners, and refined through multiple iterations.
The goal isn’t perfection on the first try. It’s creating a living, breathing set of resources that evolve with educator needs and learner realities. By maintaining this commitment to human-centered design and continuous improvement, we’re ensuring that when the K-12 Durable Skills Framework launches publicly, it will be a practical, tested, educator-approved toolkit for building the human capabilities every student needs to thrive.
The educators who sparked this initiative understood something fundamental: preparing learners for an uncertain future is about developing the durable human skills that transcend any particular role or industry. Through this community-driven approach, we’re building a foundation for lifelong success, one skill at a time.
