To get a job refurbishing Bradley fighting vehicles at the United Defense Corp. plant in Fayette County, you must prove proficiency in math, reading and information gathering.

	VWH Campbell Jr./Post Gazette
	To get a job at the United Defense Corp. facility in Fayette County, which remanufactures the Bradley fighting vehicle, these employees had to take a skills assessment test called WorkKeys, a sort of SAT or College Board exam for the working world that was developed by ACT Inc.

To do that, job candidates complete a skills assessment exercise called WorkKeys, a sort of SAT or college board exam for the world of work developed by ACT Inc., the nonprofit scholastic achievement testing firm formerly known as American College Testing.

"We have hired several dozen people since we began using it, and it's an excellent predictor of skills and how well someone will be able to meet our requirements," said plant manager Deborah Fox, who oversees a 100-member work force that refurbishes and upgrades both Bradleys and floating ribbon bridges -- expandable pontoons used by Marines to move vehicles across rivers and streams.

Reading and math skills are key to United Defense because the shop workers at its plant in Lemont Furnace must diagnose and repair complex equipment while following precise work instructions and drawings, part of the voluminous paperwork required of military contractors.

WorkKeys, however, is viewed by proponents as being much more than a way for employers to screen job candidates. They believe it can be used to motivate students to choose and prepare for careers and to help school districts meet state testing standards and the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

It may also be a way to involve education employers who complain that schools fail to deliver work-ready candidates or that they can't gauge whether workers have the right skills until after they are hired.

"Schools are the doorways through which all of the region's residents are able to take advantage of economic opportunities. And yet the employer voice is for the most part absent from within public education,'' said David Mosey, executive director of Keys2Work Pittsburgh, a nonprofit career development and job matching system based on WorkKeys.

The Benedum Foundation of Pittsburgh is funding WorkKeys assessments for ninth- or 10th-graders at schools in Fayette, Greene and Washington counties through a grant. Benedum program manager James DeNova said the foundation, which has a history of rural philanthropy, is interested in using WorkKeys to help students improve their educational standing and prepare for careers.

"It gives us a chance to have kids assessed early and start to make plans for their own career interests. We can see what areas they would need to make improvement in and where they excel given particular careers they want to pursue,'' he said.

Keys2Work, a project of the Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania, has developed an online delivery system, , where students or job seekers can match their scores on the WorkKeys assessment against profiles of jobs. The profiles are basically a description of specific tasks and required skills and include salary and other information. Local employers are encouraged to list their own available jobs and their requirements. Post-secondary training options for various careers are listed as well.

"The whole point of this is to make the connection that basic skills matter, regardless of what your career aspirations are,'' said Barry Nathan, an industrial psychologist and associate director of Keys2Work.

Nathan said the system can help students better relate basic educational skills to jobs, and answer the question students often ask in school: Why do I need to know this?

"You can't make that connection with an SAT test. You can't make that connection with the state standards test, so it fills a gap in how basic skills and student levels in those things relate to their readiness for work,'' he said.

Every 10th-grader in Fayette County's six school districts took the assessment last year as part of a larger initiative promoted by the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council, which is working to involve employers such as United Defense in regional educational improvement. Assessments will be given again this year.

Michael Krajovic, president and CEO of Fay-Penn, describes the system as a "common language" or tool that can be used by students, teachers, parents and employers to match actual skill levels to occupations and earning potential.

He envisions it one day being used statewide by students, guidance counselors and job placement outlets such as Pennsylvania's CareerLink program, he recently made a pitch promoting the program to the Rendell Administration.

"We really think a comprehensive approach getting students using it, employers using it and CareerLinks using it is the key to success,'' Krajovic said.

Krajovic believes Fayette County, where the unemployment rate in August was 6.7 percent -- among the highest in the state -- is unique in its embrace of the program.

The county, he said, may be the only one in the country testing all 10th-graders. Teachers are being trained with the help of the Intermediate Unit One, which provides educational support to schools in Fayette, Greene and Washington counties. Complementary instructional materials are being developed and Fay-Penn is recruiting employers to have their job positions profiled for the Internet site.

The program has a way to go to bring more realistic aspirations of the working world to the region's high school students.

Some 75 percent of 10th-graders in Fayette who took the WorkKeys assessment last year showed skill levels that translated into occupations with earning potential below $30,000 a year.

Yet the five careers they most often chose as their "favorites" were actors, athletes and sports competitors, fashion designers, registered nurses and sketch artists -- jobs, with the exception of nurses, not typically associated with Fayette County.

Service providers, retail trade and government are the biggest employment sectors in the county. Uniontown Hospital is the county's largest single employer, followed by the Connellsville Area School District, Nemacolin Woodlands and Wal-Mart.

"A lot of young people look at athletes and some of the entertainment industries as aspirations, and we all realize the potential to make a living out of those careers is difficult,'' said Bill Thompson, executive director of the Westmoreland Fayette Workforce Investment Board, which is providing funding to REACH, a Fay-Penn educational effort that has embraced WorkKeys.

The Workforce Investment Board, charged with setting priorities for the spending of federal and state job-training funds, has concluded that the region is best served by focusing on information technology, health care, advanced manufacturing, hospitality and tourism and the financial services industries.

"What we're saying is, if you're interested in becoming a productive citizen in the southwestern part of the state, these are the occupations or industries where there's a likelihood of your finding a job or growth,'' Thompson said. "That's a direction you should take."