From Portrait to Practice: Turning Graduate Profiles into Real Learning

We have the opportunity and responsibility to learn from both our significant and successful past as we design future-ready districts. The challenge is not simply creating a Portrait of a Graduate (POG). Many districts already have one. The real challenge is translating that vision into daily instruction, professional learning, leadership decisions, and district culture. A POG becomes powerful when it moves from a poster on a wall to a living framework that shapes how students learn and how adults lead. 

My understanding of this work began years ago while teaching in Newark, Delaware. I served on the district’s Career Committee and later chaired the high school committee. We organized career days built around industry clusters, giving students a glimpse into possible futures. Those early experiences helped me see what districts now attempt with far greater clarity: connecting academic learning to career and life readiness. 

Our guest speaker during our first career day in Newark was a young newly elected senator from Delaware. Looking back over the span of his life and observing many who have grown and changed as the economic, social, political, and personal demands swept us through time, I know that the career clusters of those years were a significant effort to increase awareness and understanding about opportunities for all learners. 

A perspective I often return to comes from Career Education in Colleges by Harris and Grede (1977). They argue that career education is “both ancient and new.” Ancient Greek scholars believed learning and public life were inseparable. During the Middle Ages, liberal arts study prepared leaders for diplomacy, law, religious service, and civic responsibility. For centuries, education meant preparing students for meaningful participation in society. That history strengthens the case for integrating career, college, and life planning into a modern POG. 

The first federal investment in career and technical education began in 1917 with the passage of the Smith-Hughes National Vocational Education Act. Since then, federal investments have continued and grown, diverging into two main components: career and technical education and workforce development. In the early twentieth century, the United States placed the influx of immigrants into schools according to perceived ability, preparing students for one of three tracks: college, the general workforce, or specific vocational trades such as plumbing and secretarial work. 

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education program provides work-based learning opportunities across sixteen career clusters. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provides workforce training and employment services to adults and youth. These programs emphasize lifelong, academic, and technical skills for high-demand careers. Integrated learning, which blends text-based learning with applied learning experiences, helps students connect classroom knowledge to real life.

Workers recognize the importance of honing their skills. A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that most adults believe they must continue to update skills through training to remain competitive.