Transferable Skills: The Not-So-Secret Solution For Keeping K-12 Public Education Relevant

(For a video companion to this article, click here.)

Introduction: The Era of Scrutiny

In several of my recent articles I have described a dark age for public education when it comes to public trust. Regardless of the topic, whether the focus is on professional development, school culture, or even instructional strategies, a pervasive sense of mistrust seems to hover like a dark cloud over educators, students, and parents alike.  It is in this era of schools facing increasing scrutiny over the effectiveness of their practices and competence of their educators, that a wave of reform movements have risen, many based on dubious research and murky practices, all seeming to be centered on the notion that the status quo is untenable and that the problem is stemming from what is happening inside classrooms.

Up until now I have acknowledged this rather immense elephant that has been sitting in nearly every room where education is being discussed, from the halls of state capitol buildings to the school offices and classrooms where attendance, IEPs, and grades are discussed. The one common theme is that there appears to be an increasingly widening moat between educators and the greater community, with the belief being that schools cannot be trusted to prepare students for life in the 21st century.

I fully understand how incendiary this statement might appear, and I want to make it clear that I do not endorse this view (it often appears as if there are certain factions with monetary and political reasons for attempting to discredit public education who are most often the ones fanning these flames). Furthermore, there are many in the public who would proudly count themselves as part of a group that not only believes in public education but fully trusts the passion, commitment, and creativity that teachers have shown for years.

With that said, the data has been consistent regarding whether the general public believes that schools are adequately preparing their students for life. For instance, while 3% of Americans believe that a student without a high school diploma is ready for the workforce, that number only increases to 4% when discussing a student with a high school diploma and no other education (Hodges, 2012). Furthermore, only 11% of business leaders strongly agree that schools are effective at preparing students for the workforce (Gallup, 2023). Perhaps most damning of all, 39% of high school graduates entering the workforce report significant gaps in their work habits and basic skills expected of them in entry-level positions (Achieve, Inc., n.d.). 

The data shows that whether right or wrong, fair or unfair, deserved or undeserved, a significant portion of the public and high school graduates feel as if there is a misalignment between public education’s goals and what it actually produces in terms of learning. Perhaps the great irony is that public schools have already found a way to address these concerns and many are already making strides in implementing the solution. The not-so-secret approach to meeting the needs of 21st century students is to shift towards targeting and explicitly teaching transferable skills that can be applied in a variety of settings.

What Are Transferrable Skills and How Do We Teach Them?

Much like a teacher plans his or her lesson, before moving into how to teach the skills, we must first discuss what transferrable skills are. The common educational literature defines them as:

"...a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed—by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers and others—to be critically important to success in today's world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces." (Appleby et al., 2018, p. 1)

Educators typically categorize them into three domains: cognitive skills (e.g. analytical thinking and decision-making), social skills (e.g. collaboration and conflict negotiation), and emotional skills (e.g. adaptability and resilience) (Cronin & Zwissig, 2024). Essentially, they are life skills focusing on the metacognitive strategies that students can employ to any subject or situation.

It should be noted, however, that although this definition adds an overall structure, it is a very large umbrella. Indeed, just about any skill could fall into one of these domains. Many different organizations have offered their own respective lists of transferable skills that educators should target. Perhaps the most common one comes from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (2024) that identifies the following 8 core competencies:

• Critical Thinking: Identifying and responding to needs based on situational context and logical analysis.
• Communication: Clearly and effectively exchanging information and ideas across various platforms.
• Teamwork: Building collaborative relationships and managing conflict within diverse groups.
• Technology: Leveraging existing and emerging technologies ethically to enhance efficiency.
• Leadership: Recognizing and capitalizing on personal and team strengths to achieve shared goals.
• Professionalism: Consistently demonstrating accountability and effective work habits (e.g., punctuality, integrity).
• Career & Self-Development: Proactively developing oneself through continuous learning and networking.
• Equity & Inclusion: Demonstrating the awareness, attitude, and skills required to equitably engage with people from different local and global cultures.

As can be seen above, these are broad skills that can be applied to just about any context that an adult might experience. Furthermore, many school districts have adopted either these standards or similar ones to develop their Portrait of a Learner (otherwise known as Portrait of a Graduate, Profile of a Graduate, or Habits of Success). For those who might be unfamiliar with what a Portrait of a Learner is, it is a framework that identifies specific skills that all students should have mastered by the time they are graduating. Because of this, it serves as a kind of pedagogical North Star that schools use to anchor their instruction (Vander Ark & Liebtag, 2020).

Because these skills are broad, many schools create subskills that can serve as benchmarks for students to demonstrate mastery of these overall ones. An example of this is breaking a skill, such as the one centered on technology, into the following subskills for high school students:

• I can use advanced tools to make my work more efficient, such as using shortcuts or organizing my digital files so I never lose an assignment.
• I can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other new tools ethically, making sure I am still doing my own thinking and citing where my information comes from.
• I can collaborate with others in real-time using digital documents and shared calendars to manage a group project.
• I can adapt quickly when a program I use daily gets a major update or when I have to learn a brand-new piece of software for a job or class.
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Often there is a continuum with simpler skills serving as benchmarks for elementary school students with growing complexity as students move into upper grades. In other words, the overall skill is a continuum broken into subskills that increase in rigor; ideally, teachers track individual student progress throughout his or her respective K-12 career.

The logistics of teaching transferable skills might initially be seen as a barrier. Afterall, if these skills do not fit into any specific content area, who is supposed to teach them? When are they supposed to be taught? Where do they fit into the curriculum? In fact, the universality of these skills means that they are incredibly flexible and are best taught across curricula and teacher teams. For departmentalized teams, this means the content area teachers coordinating, while self-contained classrooms are able to coordinate with grade level colleagues and unified arts teachers.

There are several benefits to this. The first is that it helps reinforce Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), particularly in smaller schools. Being able to meet and discuss transferable skills allows teachers to create shared goals, data collection strategies, and interventions creating a stronger collective efficacy helping them, their colleagues, and students grow.  Furthermore they are able to "strengthen the skills they want to share with their students, including engagement, problem-solving, and self-efficacy" (Discovery Education, 2025). Students learn collaboration more effectively when they see it modeled by the adults in the building.

An example of this might be a group of 2nd grade teachers meeting monthly as a team to identify a specific subskill to focus on for the next 4-6 weeks. They might choose one centered on teamwork such as, “I can positively contribute to a group project with my peers” The team can then identify a common project, potentially including unified arts teachers, develop a shared rubric and instructional strategies, and then meet after a data cycle to review student performance and plan next steps. 

Another benefit to teaching transferable skills is that shared collaboration over instruction of transferable skills creates more opportunities for cross-curricular or interdisciplinary learning. This often can manifest in capstone projects where students complete a project that incorporates their core subjects. Interdisciplinary collaboration helps students "connect ideas across disciplines, deepening understanding and broadening perspectives" (Hickman, 2018, as cited in Wong, 2025). This helps students realize that a skill like "critical thinking" is just as relevant in a science lab as it is in a history seminar.

For instance, a team of 7th grade math, science, ELA, and social studies teachers could meet and identify a specific subskill for communication: I can conduct a research project and present my findings using various media. The team can then develop a cross curricular project. One example happened at a school where I was the principal. The team had students choose a city in North America and research the city’s culture, economy, climate, and history, using skills they developed from each content area, and then they devoted time from each class to work on it. Projects such as this allow teachers to balance transferable skills with content-specific ones and in doing so allow students to strengthen both through integration. In the example named above students used their social studies skills to study the city’s culture and history, math skills for calculating growth statistics and economic trends, science skills for measuring the city’s climate, and ELA skills for researching, synthesizing, and presenting the information.

Moving Towards the Future 

Transferable skills have been education’s not-so-secret approach to ensuring that K-12 instruction remains relevant. Targeting these skills has been one of the most promising trends in education in terms of preparing students for the needs of the 21st century because they are universal and fit into nearly any context that a graduate will face in life. Many schools have already made substantial pushes towards implementing this instruction in ways that have promoted collaboration among teachers and integration among subjects. 

Although this trend has not been met with much fanfare from the general public, it should also be remembered that education is often a field where improvement takes time. As students continue to graduate having received targeted instruction in these skills, employers, community members, and education policy advocates will begin to take notice, slowly but surely restoring trust in public education and helping usher out the era of scrutiny. 

References

Achieve, Inc. (n.d.). Rising to the challenge: Are high school graduates prepared for college and work? https://www.achieve.org/files/pollreport_0.pdf

Appleby, D., Herting, L., & Schullo, S. (2018). Challenges and resources for understanding, teaching, assessing, and promoting transferable skills in the high school psychology classroom. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/teaching-resources/transferable-skills

Cronin, B., & Zwissig, I. (2024). The purple zone: The pivotal role of transferable skills in future higher education. ICHRIE Research Reports, 9(5), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-01-2020-0012

Discovery Education. (2025, November 24). Benefits and strategies for teacher collaboration. https://www.discoveryeducation.com/blog/educational-leadership/teacher-collaboration/

Gallup. (2025, September 11). Record-low 35% in U.S. satisfied with K-12 education quality. Gallup News. https://www.gallup.com/topic/category-education.aspx

Hodges, T. (2012, October 18). The new definition of career readiness. Gallup News. https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/176663/new-definition-career-readiness.aspx

National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). (2024, April). Competencies for a career-ready workforce. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/

Vander Ark, T., & Liebtag, M. (2020). The power of portraits: Defining the future of learning. Educational Leadership and Policy Review, 7(1), 112–125.

Wong, K. (2025, September 16). Hands-on, minds-on: How interdisciplinary learning inspires student engagement. Kappa Delta Pi. https://www.kdp.org/blogs/kevin-wong/2025/09/16/hands-on-minds-on-how-interdisciplinary-learning-i