Transcript Title Goes Here - Texas Association Of Workforce Boards

Aligning Education to Meet The Needs of Texas Employers
Title Goes
Here
TAWB EDUCATION
PAPER
2014
By Firstname Lastname
By MARK GUTHRIE
WHY DO WE HAVE SKILLS GAPS?
•
More and more Middle Skill Jobs
– New jobs due to Technology advances
– Offshoring and automation of rote jobs
– General increase of skills needed for existing jobs
•
Retirements of experienced workers
•
“You must have a four year college degree to succeed”
•
Decrease in CTE
WHAT PROPORTION OF HOUSTON JOBS
ARE MIDDLE SKILL JOBS?
Distribution of Employment, Houston Region 2012
SOURCE – Greater Houston Partnership, ADDRESSING HOUSTON’S MIDDLE SKILLS JOBS CHALLENGE
CURRENT TEXAS EDUCATION SYSTEM
• 19 of 100 Texas 8th graders complete a post-secondary
credential within 11 years
• only 11 of 100 if Hispanic or African American (THECB 2013)
• Only 36% of HISD 3rd graders read on grade level (released by
HISD April 2014)
• Our inner city high school dropout rate is closer to 30 to 35%
• Huge numbers between 9th and 10th grades (Gulf Coast WDB
Education Comm Study 2010)
TEXAS COMPARED WITH OTHER
STATES – EDUCATION ATTAINMENT
• 50th in percent of people 25+ years who have completed
high school or have GED (81.1%)
• (Currently 3 million lack)
• 30th in percent of people 25 years and over who have
completed a bachelor’s degree (26.4%)
• 41st in percent of 18 to 24 year-olds enrolled in colleges and
universities (39.6%)
TEXAS FAST GROWING SCHOOL
AGE POPULATION (Age 5-17)
• Past 2000-2010
•
Grew by 675,000 to 4.9 million
• In 2010, according to TEA
• 817,000 English Language Learners (17%) enrolled in public
schools
o 311,000 in ESL programs
• 91% spoke Spanish
• Future 2010-2050
• Projected to grow by 4.5 million to 9.4 million (91.5%)
TEXAS’ CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
•
Texas will continue to see explosive population growth and we will
be older, more urban and more Hispanic
•
The Texas State Demographer’s Office projects that by 2040:
•
•
•
•
•
The population of Texas will increase to 35.8 million, a 151% increase from 1980
The percentage of the population 65 and older will nearly double to 18%
There will be 18.8 million Hispanics in Texas, a 530% increase from 1980
There will be continuing shifts in populations from rural to urban areas
Hispanics will be majority in every age group under age 60 by 2040.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
How to educate and train our future [and
current ] labor pool so that our businesses
thrive in our increasingly global economy?
WITHOUT CHANGES - PROJECTED
LABOR FORCE EDUC. ATTAINMENT RATES
WITHOUT CHANGES
EXPECT DECLINES IN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
TAWB RECOMMENDATION 1
PRE-K TO CAREERS MODEL
• Provide career path information to students from pre-K
through middle school, and beyond
• Renew focus on basic literacy and numeracy in pre-K and
elementary
• Ensure students read and do math at high school level before
exiting middle school
• Teach problem solving, critical thinking and working in groups
• Stop teaching to tests
• Curriculum is context based
• Improve teacher quality
• Expand CTE – dual credit and industry certifications
TAWB RECOMMENDATION 2
A BUSINESS-DRIVEN EDUCATION SYSTEM
• Regional partnerships between employers and
educators
• Organized by relevant industry clusters/sectors
• Focused on education and skills demanded by
regional employers
• Focused targeted investment by state and business
WHAT A BUSINESS-DRIVEN
EDUCATION SYSTEM DOES
• Produces people with knowledge and skills needed by
employers
• Aligns contextual curriculum at all levels with actual jobs and
career pathways
• Creates seamless pathways to good jobs needed by
businesses to succeed
• Provides paths for up-skilling incumbent workers and
retraining
OTHER IMPORTANT ELEMENTS
• Adult basic education
– 2.7% of statewide need currently funded
– Combine with employability and job skills
• Incumbent worker training – lifelong learning
• Student internships
FUTURE OF WORK – NO FULL TIME JOBS?
The survey concluded that
companies will always
need people’s creativity,
judgment and problemsolving skills.
An astonishing 99 percent of Texas employers surveyed
said government and educational institutions are not
doing enough to train workers. But 49 percent
acknowledged they’d never contacted one of these
institutions to explain what they want.
It’s also a clarion call for
a public education
system that prioritizes
deductive reasoning and
creative problem
solving.
LOW-INCOME YOUTH-NOT LIMITED TO
Our region has a full-blown
crisis in terms of foundational
ability. It’s hard to teach
students to weld when they
struggle to read the manual or
do basic math.
Businesses contending with skilled-labor shortages
will have to think long-term and begin investing in
our region’s low-income youth by creating these
types of opportunities for high school students and
disconnected, out-of-school youth. Businesses will
need to see themselves as investors and partners
in this system and work alongside community
service providers to ensure that all sectors of our
workforce are prepared.
In speaking with
young people, it is
apparent that there
is a huge disconnect
between what is
taught in school and
the material’s
application to jobs.
ABOUT TAWB
• Members - 28 local boards – each has board chair
or rep and Exec Director
• Each local board required to have majority of
private business members
– Approx 750 statewide
• TAWB is the voice of these employers
• Fundamental principle – employer driven
workforce system
• Not political and cannot lobby
• All volunteers except Exec Director
QUESTIONS?
THANK YOU!