Building Trust with Skills Data to Unlock Real Opportunity
The U.S. is shifting to a skills-based economy, but without validated skills and trusted public infrastructure, workers remain invisible and opportunities remain inequitable.
The Center for Skills by C-BEN (CFS x C-BEN) is home for the common language, standards, and cross-sector trust that make skills visible and spendable across education, workforce, and employer systems. CFS x C-BEN translates skills-based principles into actionable, system-level change for policymakers, employers, and educators. Skills are the new currency of opportunity, and governments have a role. The Center for Skills by C-BEN works with states to build the governance, data infrastructure, and shared standards that change that — so skills become a reliable bridge between learning and work.
Powering Trust in Skills is a featured initiative to support over 30 states, territories, and tribal governments to build the governance, data practices, resident and employer engagement, and responsible AI frameworks that position states as the lever for a skills-first economy. Backed by Walmart and developed in partnership with the National Governors Association, CFS x C-BEN provides neutral technical assistance, peer learning, and connection to national partners at every stage — not mandates, but a shared framework states can own and sustain.
The Center for Skills by C-BEN is a national initiative of the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) that serves as a catalyst for building the consensus, infrastructure, and standards that connect learning to career success and economic opportunity. CFS x C-BEN works alongside states, territories, Tribal nations, employers, and education providers to design and govern skills-based talent systems that are transparent and built to scale.
At a Glance
Participating States, Territories, & Tribal Governments
Powering Trust in Skills is active across the country — supporting state leaders building the governance and data infrastructure for a skills-first future.
Featured News
Learn how Powering Trust in Skills is taking shape in practice.
Lessons from Powering Trust leaders Nathaniel Rankin & Robert McGough
How strong governance, cross-sector collaboration, and shared skills standards turn talent marketplace concepts into real opportunity for learners, workers, and employers.
Alabama Talent Triad
A national model connecting CBE, apprenticeship, and workforce data into a unified talent marketplace — recognized in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s A Nation at Work.
Report: Informing the California Career Passport
This report from California's Cradle-to-Career Data System documents findings from a national scan of learning and employment record systems, offering lessons from early-adopter states to guide the development of California's Career Passport — a tool designed to help people showcase their skills and qualifications to find good jobs.
Building a Trusted Skills Infrastructure
States are being asked to lead the skills-based transition — but significant investments keep stalling at the same point: the absence of governance. Skills data remains siloed across agencies. Credentials don’t travel. AI tools operate without oversight. And talent marketplace responsibilities are handed to a single agency without the authority or alignment to make them work.
The field kept treating the wrong problem — adding more platforms and tools when what was missing was the public infrastructure to make any of it trustworthy or durable. Powering Trust in Skills provides the only vetted governance framework to solve for that, backed by neutral technical assistance from the Center for Skills by C-BEN.
The four building blocks — Cross-Agency Governance, Quality Data and Technology Infrastructure, Public Trust and Stewardship for Employers and Residents, and Incentives and Policy Alignment for Credentialing Agencies — are designed to work together as an interlocking system.
- Cross-agency governance establishes cabinet-level oversight, a shared North Star, and defined decision rights that prevent fragmentation and give states staying power.
- Quality data infrastructure ensures that skills are interoperable, privacy-protected, and flow continuously from learning through employment — so the currency of the marketplace is one people can trust.
- Public trust mechanisms bring employers in as active governance partners, connecting validated competency frameworks and skills-based hiring practices to demand signals that education and training providers can act on.
- Incentives and policy alignment direct public funding toward credentials that lead to real outcomes — transparent standards for credential value, performance-aligned funding, and consistent validation of learning.
Together, the building blocks transform a collection of well-intentioned programs into a system that states, residents, institutions, and employers can rely on — and offer a practical framework for auditing where your talent marketplace stands today. Fragmented action on one or two blocks limits impact across all of them; alignment across all four is what makes the system work.
Cross-Agency Governance (BB1)
Public Trust and Stewardship for Employers and Residents (BB3)
Legislative Incentives: Tax Breaks; Executive Orders; Good Jobs Initiatives; Economic Development
Incentives and Policy Alignment for Credentialing Agencies (BB4)
Legislative Actions for regulation: high school graduation standards, state authorization and program approvals, ETPL, non-degree credential criteria
Incentives: Performance-based funding models, scholarships, and training funds
Quality Data and Technology Infrastructure (BB2)
Cross-Agency Governance
Cabinet-level oversight, shared North Star goals, and defined decision rights that span agencies.
Quality Data and Technology Infrastructure
Interoperable systems with shared definitions, privacy-protected transparency, and data that flows from learning through employment.
Public Trust and Stewardship for Employers and Residents
Skills-based hiring practices, validated competency frameworks, and mechanisms to translate employer demand into signals that education and training providers can act on.
Incentives and Policy Alignment for Credentialing Agencies
Transparent standards for credential value, performance-aligned funding, and consistent validation of learning outcomes.
“States don’t need more platforms. They need alignment.”
A Path Forward, Built Around Your State
No two states start from the same place — and Center for Skills’ implementation support is built around that reality. We meet states where they are through a three-stage process designed to build momentum and confidence at every step.
What makes this approach work is what sits behind it: C-BEN’s position as a neutral, trusted partner — not a vendor, not a mandate — with an 800-member network across state models, and the only vetted governance framework in the field.
Intake & Audit
We start by listening. The Talent Marketplace framework allows us to audit with your team the current landscape, including existing systems, key stakeholders, and north star talent goals.
- Stakeholder mapping
- Current-state data review
- Gap identification
- Priority alignment
Roadmap
Together, we build a customized action plan tailored to your state's context and capacity — ensuring every action is tied to reaching the north star talent goal.
- Co-designed state roadmap
- Key milestones
- State Lead and Partner identification
- Resource & timeline planning
Sprint Implementation
Structured, time-boxed sprints move your roadmap into action, quickly building governance, piloting data practices, and testing frameworks with real stakeholders.
- Focused 6–8 week sprints
- Governance framework build-out
- Pilot testing & iteration
- Stakeholder engagement loops
C-BEN provides neutral, trusted technical assistance, not mandates. Your state leads.
Work with Center for SkillsTools & Guides
A library of tools and guides developed by C-BEN and partner organizations.
Building Block 1 · Cross-Agency Governance
4 resources- BB1
Building Talent Marketplaces: A Shared Vision for Trust through Governance
This guide shares the common vision and governance structures that are being created to facilitate economic growth, resident mobility, and learning quality. This is the first publication in the Building Talent Marketplaces: Implementation Tool Series.
PUBLISHEDPUBLISHED - BB1
Policy Components of Governing Talent Marketplaces
A framework identifying the policy levers, governance structures, and legislative strategies that states, territories, and Tribal nations can use to build durable, equitable, skills-based talent marketplaces.
PUBLISHEDPUBLISHED - BB1
Cross-Agency Implementation Companion
A practical framework for cross-agency leadership teams charged with operationalizing a skills-based talent marketplace — aligning governance, employer practices, credential quality, and data infrastructure across agencies.
COMING SOONCOMING SOON - BB1
Financing Talent Marketplaces
A comprehensive framework for states, territories, and Tribal nations to facilitate mapping federal funding streams, state financing strategies, Tribal-specific levers, private capital, and sustainability models to the specific components of a trusted, skills-based talent marketplace.
COMING SOONCOMING SOON
Building Block 2 · Quality Data & Technology Infrastructure
1 resource- BB2
Comptroller of the Currency: Governance of Skills Ontologies
This resource provides frameworks for establishing the governance bodies, public engagement processes, and maintenance cycles that keep skills ontologies credible — and the marketplace working.
COMING SOONCOMING SOON
Building Block 3 · Public Trust & Stewardship for Employers and Residents
1 resource- BB3
Employer and Resident Engagement Playbook
A practical guide for state, territory, and Tribal government leaders to build structured engagement with employers and residents in designing and sustaining talent marketplaces.
COMING SOONCOMING SOON
Building Block 4 · Incentives & Policy Alignment for Credentialing Agencies
1 resource- BB4
Governing for Quality, Personalizing for People: Governing the Education & Training Ecosystem
Guidance for governing publicly funded education and training quality and for organizing investments around the resident's learning journey, not the program's administrative boundary.
COMING SOONCOMING SOON
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Who’s Powering This Work
Powering Trust in Skills is made possible through collaboration with a national network of government, education, workforce, and technology partners united around trusted, human-centered skills infrastructure.
Meet the Skills Moment
States, territories, and Tribal nations building trusted talent marketplaces are strengthening public infrastructure — not creating new bureaucracy. Complete this form, and a member of the Center for Skills will be in touch.