Foremost among efforts over the last decade to improve the work-related skills required of all young people to meet the demands of American's workplaces was the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills Commission (SCANS). Integral to SCANS were its three-part foundation (basic skills, thinking skills, and personal qualities) and these five competency domains: interpersonal; systems; planning; communication and information; and technology. Implementers have used different tools in different combinations. For instance, high schools (including Baltimore City Public Schools) and community colleges (supported by the National Science Foundation through its Advanced Technological Education program) have developed SCANS CD-ROM-based curricula and developed teachers' abilities to implement SCANS, including the ability to assess students' demonstration of SCANS competencies. Career academies (including the National Academy Foundation, whose programs include mandatory summer internships that reinforce SCANS skills) and joint labor-management technical education programs for incumbent union workers have aligned existing curricula with SCANS standards, developed teachers' and trainers' skills at using a performance-based assessment instrument that assesses each skill within the context of a task in a project, and deposited assessment output into an online repository. Such a repository is also used by youth opportunity centers such as that in Baltimore. SCANS implementation at seven community colleges around the country has helped the Welfare to Work endeavor by identifying SCANS skills needed by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants and working with both participants and their job supervisors. (Contains 37 references.) (AJ/CL)