Our guest for this episode of College & Career Readiness Radio is Scott Carr from CESA2 in Wisconsin.

Scott specializes in connecting academic learning with real-world applications through career and community readiness frameworks.​

He emphasizes that lasting change in education starts with shifting mindsets and moving away from compliance-based systems to a re-culturing process focused on purpose and relevance.​

The transformation involves multiple phases: re-culturing and visioning (year one), engaging a readiness team of educators, piloting innovative classroom practices (year two), and full universal implementation led by teacher champions (year three).​

Scott highlights the impact on teachers, notably increased self-efficacy, rejuvenation, and desire for meaningful change, as well as improved student engagement, purpose, and attendance.​

Real-world application is achieved by having students work in collaborative teams with assigned roles and responsibilities, centering classroom activities on profession-based themes, and shifting grading from compliance to content defense and discovery.​

He shares real-life examples, demonstrating that classes using profession-based learning see higher engagement, accountability, and proficiency rates—even in controlled, A/B test settings compared to traditional methods.​

Community and business partners are actively involved in work-based learning, benefiting both students and local organizations.​

Scott advocates for measuring impact through journey maps, testimonials, and portfolio-based assessments, rather than relying only on test scores—though test scores and other academic benchmarks still matter.​

The key takeaway for educators: meaningful change is “not doing more, it’s doing differently”—restructuring practice to energize teachers and students, not simply adding to their workload.

If you’re interested in hearing more about tools that can facilitate what Scott discussed, including a student portfolio, book a time here to talk to the host of the show.