School

A new education model addressing the equity pandemic

Opinion: Anaheim Union High School District superintendent on the roles of high school educators in career decisions
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“The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant ‘government of the people’ but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term ‘people’ to actually mean.” 
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Now that the Black Lives Matter movement has shone a bright, unyielding light on the equity pandemic that has ravaged this country—not only from its inception, but ever since and to this day—America needs to respond in ways that matter.

With respect to education, we need to move away from traditional drivers around standardized testing to those focused on the biggest indicator of equity-access: well-paying jobs and careers that connect with student purpose and passion.

This requires a hard look at our educational systems and a new emphasis on preparing students for the changing world of work. Young people will have to be taught how to continuously reinvent, retrain, and upskill themselves.

Planting the Seeds for Lifelong Learning

There is no doubt that unlike most Boomers, Gen Z-ers will likely have several jobs across different job sectors as artificial intelligence, globalization, and the aging of Americans who stay in the workforce increase job volatility for young people.

Upskilling builds on one’s soft skills, including emotional intelligence, collaboration, communication, and self-motivation, and also builds on hard skills―those specific skills that are industry-specific.

Gen Z workers, especially those “at promise kids” with fewer means and connections―referred to in the past as “at risk” ―will have to learn to upskill to survive and thrive.

Creating Equitable Job Access Through Education
Michael Matsuda, Superintendent, Anaheim Union High School District (Photo: AUHSD)

The Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD) has embarked on an ambitious transformation of K-16 education that is blurring the lines and creating a more cohesive and aligned system that addresses job access equity.

Three years in the making, the Anaheim Educational Pledge involves the elementary and secondary districts; feeder community colleges; California State University, Fullerton; University of California, Irvine; the city of Anaheim; and over 70 corporate and non-profit partners dedicated to ensuring access to achieving college and career goals for all students.

The AUHSD is one of California’s leaders in offering dual credit community college courses aligned with career pathways at all of its high schools, as well as career mentoring and paid summer internships with its partners.

Instructionally, the District is focused on soft skills called the “Five Cs”―collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and compassion―and offers hard skills through dual credit courses, most leading to certificates.

The district is also a leader in civic engagement and Ted Talks, wherein students discover their passion and purpose in life. Additionally, it does not use pacing guides nor interim assessments to prepare for the annual battery of standardized tests required by the state, yet test scores, especially in writing, have steadily risen.

A Shorter Path to Prosperity

As a result of better alignment with careers, the district is graduating students like Anthony Gomez, a first generation English learner, who with a high school diploma and two dual credit cybersecurity courses through Cypress College, landed a job with Hulu at over $60k per year. Through the Anaheim Pledge, Anthony is continuing in community college and strives to transfer to UCI where he will receive a BS in computer science and likely a big pay raise.

But Anthony additionally has developed a sense of purpose, wanting to “pay-it-forward,” and serve as a mentor to other students. His and many other student success stories are resonating with parents and students alike. Anthony’s story is about equity and is a result of reframing educational drivers around integrating both soft and hard skills.

There is little doubt that AUHSD is creating a new educational model, one which addresses the equity pandemic by focusing on jobs and the world of work and which embraces the late Buckminster Fuller’s statement about change, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

School districts, like businesses, must be nimble and forward thinking in order to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic world. The stakes are high for traditional educational institutions but even higher for those millions of young Americans, particularly those who have been historically marginalized or outright excluded from accessing all available options, who are depending on those institutions to prepare them for success in an increasingly unstable and uncertain world.

Michael Matsuda is the superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.