Coastal Bend education task force meets today
CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER TIMES
By Rick Spruill February 15, 2013 at 7:12 p.m.
Education task force meets today
State Rep. Todd Hunter on Friday announced legislation to be filed in the coming weeks to establish a joint House-Senate committee to study how Texas can plug growing gaps in technical and vocational training available to secondary and higher education students.
Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, made the announcement during a kickoff meeting of the Texas Education Workforce Task Force, a group Hunter assembled in late 2012 aimed at bolstering educational opportunities for Texas students, beginning with those in the fast growing economies of South Texas.
Workforce tracking models suggest a demand of up to 16,000 technical and vocation jobs in South Texas by 2016.
“The goal is to let Texans know you have state officials who know you are concerned and who are interested,” Hunter told the group.
He said the landscape is changing for Texas students and educators, particularly those in South Texas.
“We are no longer a national focus, we are a global focus,” Hunter said. “We want jobs, industry and education to stay here. We don’t want laws and regulations to push people away.”
He predicted Texas’ population, at about 25 million as of the 2010 Census, will overtake California for the most populous state in the union by 2020.
California tallied more than 37.2 million in 2010.
The meeting, a gathering of public education leaders from around the state, local industry leaders and workforce development experts, drew more than 200 to the Education Service Center Region 2 on Water Street and another 300 officials at 20 regional education service centers statewide who participated via teleconference.
The group is expected to pull together data, expert testimony and industry input in the hopes of crafting legislation to help meet future needs.
“Workforce preparation is every bit as important as academic preparations,” said Catherine Clark, associate executive director of the Texas Association of School Boards.
Clark, formerly a middle school teacher, said the state’s focus on testing is troubling to teachers, families, students and employers.
She said the although testing requirements, implemented in the 2007-2008 school years, began with good intentions, the unintended consequence has been a drop off in workforce preparation opportunities for Texas’ 1.4 million- and growing — public high school student population.
Several bills have been filed in Austin addressing cumulative testing requirements that educators say hamper student development.
RepCon Inc. President Bob Parker, a panel participant, said there is a disconnect and lack of communication between stakeholders, including educators, with what industry and businesses are facing.
He is on the board for the Craft Training Center and said the group works with 14 school districts and 19 high schools that bring students daily to the training facility.
“We are trying to let kids know there are good paying jobs without a four-year degree,” he said.
He said he appreciates the value of a four-year degree — Parker is an engineer — but a four-year degree is not the be-all end-all of educational attainment.
“I’m an engineer, but I’m a contractor who employs pipe fitters and welders who make $75,000 or $80,000 per year in a respectable career,” he said.
Parker said current curricula in high schools threaten programs that can train for those careers.
