Two education experts, Jorge Borrego and Erin Davis Valdez, recently authored a report on Texas workers, which concluded that many young students are not "career-ready."
According to the report, "Are Texas Students Career-Ready?", a majority of people in rural Texas believe that high school graduates aren't ready to take on a career, despite the state spending $3 billion each year on education. An overwhelming majority of Texans, both Democrats and Republicans in rural areas, are in favor of more workforce training options being made available to high school students.
"Texas outspends the federal government in CTE (career and technical education) to the tune of $2 billion," Borrego tweeted Feb 16. "Yet Texas will be short thousands of skilled workers by 2030."
The Texas Education Code aims to provide a well-balanced and appropriate curriculum that prepares students for post-secondary activities, including employment and higher education. However, according to data by the Texas Public Education Information Resource, 32% of graduates from the class of 2019 were neither employed nor in college six months after graduation, which the report suggests indicates a lack of career-readiness.
The demand for "middle skills jobs," defined by Borrego and Valdez as "jobs that require some post-secondary education but less than a bachelor’s degree," is increasing, but fewer students are enrolling in higher education, which makes the middle skills gap worse.
Borrego and Valdez wrote that CTE programs could better serve students by focusing on occupations where the gap is the widest and most persistent, improving incentives for school districts to offer more aligned programs, expanding virtual options and utilizing industry partnerships to increase program offerings.
The report noted that 94% of rural Democrats and 87% of rural Republicans support a workforce training option for high school students. These programs would function as an alternative to college and keep students from going into debt.
CTE programs in Texas are funded through federal, state and local tax dollars, and the incentives within each funding stream have a direct impact on student outcomes. Texas receives funds through Perkins V at the federal level, providing nearly $1.3 billion annually for CTE programs across the country. However, Texas invests more than $3 billion in CTE allotment, the college, career and military outcomes bonuses program, and local bonds, allowing state schools to incentivize such programs with the lowest capital and maintenance expenditures.
The report highlights that, despite the identification of bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists as a target occupation by every Educational Service Center (ESC) region's workforce board in Texas, eight ESC regions in the state do not offer a program of study in diesel and heavy equipment mechanics. The authors note that only 5.9% of school districts in Texas offer this program, leaving over 3,900,000 students without access to it. They recommend policy measures to bridge these gaps and reduce constraints on the state's economy.
Borrego and Valdez wrote that the middle skills gap in Texas could cost the economy more than $2.5 trillion over the next decade, with 56% of the labor market made up of middle skills workers but only 42% having the necessary training. As a result, Texas launched the Texas 60x30 campaign, which encourages students to obtain occupational certificates in high school through CTE programs. However, despite the nearly $3 billion investment in these programs, many students do not have access to high-wage, high-demand programs of study, particularly in traditional vocational fields such as construction and transportation.
The report recommended changes to school finance, industry-based credentials lists, student enrollment rules, and CTE course instruction restrictions to address this issue and increase student outcomes. They emphasize the importance of giving students the opportunity to develop their unique abilities for the prosperity of the state.
According to the Lone Star Standard, Texas suffers from a lack of trade-type workers such as plumbers, HVAC technicians and electricians, especially in rural areas. In addition, 43 counties in Texas are losing population, mainly in Northwest and West Texas, but 111 are gaining population, mainly in the “Texas Triangle" of Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth.
