The campaign highlights mounting evidence of a nationwide career readiness challenge:

•    Nearly 96% of Americans do not believe high school graduates are fully prepared for college or careers.

•    Six in ten employers say graduates enter the workforce unprepared.

•    Only one-third of employees report feeling engaged at work, according to Gallup.

•    Recent graduates report they would have been more motivated in school if they had better understood their strengths, career options, and future pathways earlier.

Bostonia Global was selected for its innovative “World of Work” orientation, transforming the way students think about developing the skills, habits, and education that lead to personally meaningful careers. The school’s approach helps students connect academic learning with future opportunities, identity development, and real-world aspirations.

“This award celebrates schools that are redefining what education and student success mean in America,” said Eva Mitchell-Harris, Chief Executive Officer of the CCD Center. “Young people deserve an education that helps them discover how they can contribute to the world while sparking curiosity, developing new interests, uncovering hidden talents, and challenging themselves across a wide range of professions long before choosing a career path. Treating career readiness as an integral part of academic learning is not optional. It is fundamental.”

The campaign launches as schools, employers, and policymakers nationwide confront growing concerns about student disengagement, workforce shortages, AI disruption, and rising skepticism about whether traditional education pathways are preparing young people for economic mobility.

The CCD Center’s Five-Pillar Solutions Framework offers a practical roadmap for communities seeking to strengthen career readiness through career planning, professional advising, applied career-connected learning, career technologies, and shared accountability among schools, employers, government, and communities.

In collaboration with the Reshoring Initiative, one of the CCD Center’s major industry supporters, the organization is using the award event to elevate national awareness around the growing disconnect between education and workforce opportunity. The Reshoring Initiative’s CEO, Harry Moser, agrees that without changes to business as usual, far too many people “cannot achieve high-wage, high-demand occupational pathways that lead to economic and social mobility." (A Practice Brief for Industry, CCD Center, 2025). 

The CCD Center invites schools, employers, policymakers, nonprofits, and community leaders to join the campaign and help build local career-readiness systems that connect learning to opportunity.

Following the award ceremony, the CCD Center will release resources and implementation tools to help communities build local career-readiness systems through cross-sector partnerships among schools, employers, nonprofits, government agencies, and industry organizations. These tools include a series of 10 cross-sector career-readiness playbooks developed by ALLready, a CCD Center affiliate focused on implementation and field support. 

The CCD Center Board and Advisory Council, together with the organization’s State Leaders Career Development Network, represent a coalition of national industry leaders, education associations, workforce experts, and policymakers committed to advancing career readiness as a core public priority.

For more information, visit www.ccd-center.org and www.reshorenow.org.