The Seven Durable Skills at the Center of Every Delaware Graduate’s Profile

Every successful Delaware graduate — whether they leave high school for a four-year university, a community college program, an industry credential, an apprenticeship, or direct workforce entry — relies on the same seven durable skills: critical thinking, creativity, executive function, leadership, collaboration, communication, and self-direction. These are the skills employers consistently rank as essential. They are the skills that make the difference between students who finish what they start and students who don’t. They are the skills behind every local Delaware district’s Portrait of a Graduate, and they are the skills that turn Delaware’s career readiness framework from policy language into year-round documented practice.

Durable skills are easy to name. They are harder to measure and develop systematically across grades K-12 — especially at the scale Delaware districts operate, with diverse student populations and a wide range of postsecondary destinations.

Renzulli Learning is the only K-12 platform that does both. The Cebeci Test of Creativity measures creativity (US Patent 12,087,176) — the durable skill behind every Portrait-of-a-Graduate innovation competency and every original capstone project. The Executive Function Assessment measures planning, working memory, and self-regulation — the durable skills behind every Portrait-of-a-Graduate self-directed-learner attribute. The Leadership Assessment measures leadership, collaboration, communication, and work ethic — the durable skills behind every Portrait-of-a-Graduate collaborative-communicator attribute. The Profiler captures interests, learning styles, and expression styles in 20+ languages — the foundation of every personalized learning plan a Delaware educator builds.

Delaware’s Portrait of a Graduate: Two Attribute Clusters & Four Supporting Statutory Anchors

Across Delaware, local school districts have developed their own Portrait of a Graduate documents describing the durable-skills attributes every graduate should embody. While Delaware does not maintain a single statewide Portrait, two attribute clusters appear repeatedly across districts: self-directed learners and innovators, and collaborative communicators and engaged citizens. These two clusters — together with the seven Renzulli durable skills behind them — describe what Delaware graduates need to thrive.

The Delaware Department of Education provides a supporting statutory framework that operationalizes Portrait-of-a-Graduate work at the systems level: a graduation requirement that includes a sequenced career-focused course of study, an annual planning cycle that helps every middle and high school student articulate goals, a district-level postsecondary advisement layer, and a partnership hub connecting schools to employers. Together, the Portrait attributes and the supporting statutory framework form a six-cluster picture — and Renzulli Learning is the K-12 platform that measures and develops the durable skills behind every cluster:

What Delaware Curriculum Directors & Career Readiness Coordinators Struggle With

These are the durable-skills-and-Portrait-of-a-Graduate challenges we consistently hear from Delaware district leaders, school counselors, and career readiness coordinators — especially as Governor Meyer’s Youth Apprenticeship Expansion (Executive Order #1), the Office of Workforce Development’s 2026 Workforce Equity Report, and DDOE’s Strategic Plan 2025-2028 ramp up:

Eight Renzulli Learning Tools That Measure and Develop Delaware’s Durable Skills

Each tool produces evidence aligned to the 24-credit graduation requirement (14 DE Admin Code 505), the 3-credit Career Pathway, SSPs (14 DE Admin Code 507), PSAPs, CTE Programs of Study under Perkins V, Work-Based Learning, Delaware Pathways, and the eight Delaware CTSOs:

Delaware Career Readiness & Renzulli Learning — Frequently Asked Questions