Answer: All of these entities are members (as of June 2009) of an organization that has pioneered and championed the movement toward a 21st century approach to education, called the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21)—see http://www.21stcenturyskills.org.

Founded in 2002 as an outgrowth of a successful U.S. effort to bring the power of technology to all aspects of teaching and learning, P21 is designed to serve as “a catalyst to infuse 21st century skills throughout primary and secondary schools by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders.” P21 has been a growing force for “preparing young people to succeed as individuals, citizens and workers in the 21st century.”¹

In 2007, P21 conducted a nationwide poll that found that nearly all voters who responded believed the teaching of 21st century skills—including critical thinking and problem solving, computer and technology skills, communication and self-direction skills—is important to the country’s future economic success. This finding, and others in a long list of P21 reports, helped influence the educational agendas in the U.S. presidential election of 2008 and educational policies of the new administration.

A growing number of U.S. states have signed on to become P21 leadership states and are working to incorporate 21st century skills into all aspects of student learning, teacher professional development, curriculum, standards, assessments, and learning environments.

Although it is focused primarily on the American education system, P21’s message is being echoed across the world, spreading through its network of global member organizations while like-minded advocates for educational modernization develop similar ideas in other countries. For example:

P21 is employing a three-part strategy to promoting and sustaining the 21st century skills agenda:

A number of well-researched attempts have been carried out in the past to capture the key knowledge, skills, and learning supports needed for our times.² Each one was different in its categories and lists of essential skills, but none comprehensively yet simply captured the 21st century student outcomes needed plus the school reforms necessary to support those outcomes.

P21’s Standards, Assessment and Professional Development Committee was assigned the job of devising a learning framework that would guide all the future work of the partnership. With more than thirty-five member organizations, a number of participating departments of education, and hundreds of members of professional education and research organizations all weighing in on what education’s future should be, the committee had its hands full. Agreement seemed a very long way off.

In fact, getting to consensus on a vision for the future of learning was itself a 21st century challenge, demanding the use of all the skills the P21 committee sought to define in the framework, including collaboration, problem solving, communications, and creativity. The committee members (and the authors of this book, who co-chaired the committee) had to “eat their own cooking” as they were cooking it!

“I remember long phone conferences where we struggled to get agreement on a single compelling image that captured all the skills, knowledge, and school support systems needed for the 21st century,” recalls Karen Cator, the P21 board president at the time, and the director of education leadership and advocacy at Apple, Inc. “Then suddenly, near the end of the allotted time for the meeting, someone would suggest a new phrase or combination of ideas that seemed just right, and we were off and rolling once again.”

After dozens of meetings, a national conference, and endlessly updated drafts reviewed by scores of educators, business leaders, and policymakers, the framework was finally completed. The result of this collaborative effort to map the future of education in a single image (Figure B.1), and a well-articulated framing document to go with it, was well worth the year of creative consensus building it took to produce it.³

This P21 design has become the guidepost for the 21st century skills movement, and a road map to 21st century learning. The outcomes we expect from students today are both more rigorous and more relevant than those of the past. Applying 21st century skills, along with basic 3Rs literacy and numeracy skills, to content knowledge and 21st century themes makes for more powerful learning experiences that lead to deeper understanding and more useful knowledge in tune with our times.