From School to Skills: Rethinking Assessment, Credentials, and Workforce Readiness with Chad Buckendahl
In this episode of Tried and Tested, host Isabelle Gonthier, PhD, ICE-CCP speaks with Chad Buckendahl, PhD, ICE-CCP, Managing Partner at ACS Ventures, about how assessment, credentials, and workforce readiness can be better connected across the learner journey. Drawing on his work in program design, evaluation, standard setting, policy, legal issues, and validation studies across credentialing and education, Chad explores why school, work, and professional credentialing should not be treated as separate systems.
As more education and credentialing leaders look for ways to connect classroom learning with future careers, Chad explains why durable skills, quantitative reasoning, data interpretation, and career-connected credentials deserve closer attention. The conversation covers credentials as checkpoints across lifelong learning, the role of high school in building workforce-ready skills, the risks of siloed systems, the importance of validity, reliability, and fairness, and why AI literacy should start with being a critical consumer of new technologies.
What you’ll learn:
- How credentials can serve as checkpoints across a lifelong learning pathway
- Why school, workforce, and professional credentialing systems need stronger connections
- What durable skills, including reading, communication, and quantitative reasoning, mean for career readiness
- Why data interpretation may be one of the most important skills students need for work and life
- How high school credentials can help students explore career pathways without narrowing opportunity
- What education and credentialing leaders should consider before adding workforce credentials to school programs
- Why AI literacy should focus on critical thinking, source credibility, and responsible use
- How multidisciplinary learning can help people adapt as work, technology, and assessment continue to evolve
Who should listen:
- Education and assessment leaders connecting school outcomes to workforce readiness
- Credentialing and certification professionals exploring earlier career pathways
- K-12 and secondary education leaders evaluating workforce-related credentials
- Employers and workforce development teams focused on durable skills and talent pipelines
- Psychometricians and program evaluators working across education and credentialing
- Policy and program leaders responsible for validity, fairness, and quality assurance
- Organizations thinking about how AI and technology should shape future-ready skills
Chad Buckendahl, PhD, ICE-CCP
Managing Partner with ACS Ventures, LLC
Chad Buckendahl, PhD, ICE-CCP, is a Managing Partner with ACS Ventures, LLC with an emphasis in program design, evaluation, standard setting, policy, and legal issues. Dr. Buckendahl has designed and led development and validation studies for programs in credentialing and education. He regularly contributes thought leadership through professional conference presentations, white papers, journal articles, and book chapters. He currently serves on the joint committee for the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, technical advisory committees in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for diverse licensure, certification, and education programs; and previously served on volunteer committees for the Association of Test Publishers (ATP), Institute for Credentialing Excellence (I.C.E.), International Test Commission (ITC), and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).