The OECD review team greatly appreciates the time and effort provided by a range of experts and officials from the Commonwealth of Virginia. This work was strongly supported by Aimee Guidara, the Secretary of Education and McKenzie Snow, Deputy Secretary of Education of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Heather McKay, Rachel O’Brien and Renata Scott from Virginia Office of Education Economics (VOEE) have been tremendously helpful partners in this work, especially in organising highly informative and stimulating meetings for the review team to have a better understanding of policy and practice in Virginia. Antionette Stroter and Anthony Williams (Virginia Department for Education), Tod Massa (State Council of Higher Education for Virginia) also provide invaluable support and guidance throughout the project period.
Special thanks go to all the interviewees from the 22 institutions in Virginia who shared their ideas, opinions and information which allowed the OECD review team to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Virginia’s policies, practices, challenges, and strengths, as well as highlighting to the team their passion to strengthen the career readiness of young people. Throughout the course of the project, the enthusiasm, commitment, depth of knowledge and professionalism of everyone working on this issue in Virginia was evident. The review team was inspired and impressed by the commitment of all those working on career readiness in Virginia and saw directly how hard they work to meet the expectations of the citizens of the Commonwealth.
This report was drafted by Shinyoung Jeon from the OECD Education and Skills Directorate (EDU), under the supervision of Anthony Mann (Head of Career Readiness team, EDU) and Andreas Schleicher (EDU director). Tricia Berry, an external career expert from Department for Education, New Brunswick, Canada, accompanied the review team from the initial phase of building conceptual frameworks, through a mission to Virginia, and to the early drafting and review phase. André Lopes (EDU) assisted research and data work as well as the preparation of the mission and online interviews. The report has benefited from comments provided by Shivi Chandra, Rebecca Frankum, and Simon Roy (EDU). Administrative assistance was provided by Dongwook Choi (EDU) and Eda Cabbar (EDU).
This report was realised by the Career Readiness team at the OECD with the support of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. The views expressed in this report should not be taken to reflect the official position of the OECD member countries or the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.