Partnership for 21st Century Learning

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) was founded in 2002 as a coalition bringing together the business community, education leaders, and policymakers to position 21st century readiness at the center of K-12 education in the United States and to kick-start a national conversation on the importance of 21st century skills for all students. Historically, P21 has been a powerful convener and motivator but has had limited capacity to demonstrate its impact on fostering specific reforms. This Organizational Effectiveness grant will assist them in developing expertise in evaluation systems design so that they will be better able to: craft a set of valid and reliable criteria to evaluate exemplary implementation at the school and district level; develop tools and resources that can help schools and districts understand and develop their own capacity to evaluate 21st Century Skills implementation; and report at the national level to funders and policymakers on their influence and impact.

This national organization advocates college and career readiness for every student, including deeper learning skills. With this funding, it would begin to examine the civic capacity and engagement outcomes associated with deeper learning and to encourage civic organizations to help frame and drive a skills reform agenda in the United States.

This collaborative grant, described in the Education docket memo, would support the development and wide dissemination of the Arts Skills Map, giving teachers concrete examples of how twenty-first century (deeper learning) skills can be integrated into arts education.