Carnegie Skills Progressions

Dataset last updated August 12, 2026.

Overview

The Carnegie Skills Progressions dataset represents a research-grounded framework for durable, employer-recognized skills. It describes how each skill develops across 4 progression levels in high school.


Source	Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching ↗ and ETS ↗‘s Skills Progressions, Vol. 1
Supported grades	9–12
Includes	Collaboration Communication Critical Thinking

In future releases, the Carnegie Skills Progressions dataset will be expanded to include:

Additional skills that have been finalized in later Carnegie volumes

Use cases

Use case	Examples
Build rubrics and assess student work	Score student work directly against the four-level progressions (Exploring → Analyzing → Integrating → Extending) Skip hand-coding a rubric from a PDF
Tag AI-generated content	Label or align AI-generated content and activities to specific durable skills and indicators
Support project-based and career-connected learning	Attach employer-recognized, cross-jurisdiction language for Collaboration, Communication, and Critical Thinking to projects and work-based experiences
Localize a Portrait of a Graduate	Map a district’s Portrait of a Graduate to Carnegie’s multi-state language to present durable skills goals in terms a wider range of districts will accept
Query durable skills alongside academic standards	Treat durable skills as a queryable dimension alongside academic standards, using a shared data model to build against more than one framework at once

Schema

The data uses Standards entities to represent Skills, Subskills, Indicators, Indicator Items, and Progression Levels in a 5-level tree:


Data model
Entities	`StandardsFramework` (e.g., Carnegie Skills Progressions, Vol. 1) `StandardsFrameworkItem` with 5 `statementType`s: Skill — i.e., Collaboration, Communication, or Critical Thinking Subskill — Named capability within a skill Indicator — Thematic, observable statement within a subskill Indicator Item — Concrete, assessable item under an indicator (e.g. 1.1A) Progression Level — i.e., Exploring, Analyzing, Integrating, or Extending
Relationships	`StandardsFramework` → `hasChild` → Skill (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) Skill (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) → `hasChild` → Subskill (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) Subskill (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) → `hasChild` → Indicator (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) Indicator (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) → `hasChild` → Indicator Item (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) Indicator Item (`StandardsFrameworkItem`) → `hasChild` → Progression Level (`StandardsFrameworkItem`)

Skills and Progression Levels carry a name. Subskills, Indicators, and Indicator Items have name set to null and description set to include the statement.

Usage details


Requires files from other datasets	None
References files from other datasets	None
REST API endpoints	Durable Skills Frameworks Durable Skills Search Durable Skills

Dataset release history

Date	Changed
August 12, 2026	First release for Collaboration, Communication, and Critical Thinking Skills

Standards schema reference

Review entities, relationships, and property definitions for the shared StandardsFramework and StandardsFrameworkItem model.

Durable Skills API reference

Query durable skills through the REST API — list frameworks, browse a framework’s skills, and search by keyword or statement code.

Understanding Knowledge Graph

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Using Knowledge Graph

Datasets

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Resources

Overview

Use cases

Schema

Usage details

Dataset release history

Standards schema reference

Durable Skills API reference

​Overview

​Use cases

​Schema

​Usage details

​Dataset release history

​Related topics

Standards schema reference

Durable Skills API reference

Overview

Use cases

Schema

Usage details

Dataset release history

Related topics