REPORT
Ensuring Texas’ Global Success Shrinking our “skills gap” through wise investments in children’s early learning and development StrongNation.org/ReadyNation
Ready_Nation
ReadyNation
Acknowledgements Council for a Strong America is a national, bipartisan nonprofit that unites five organizations comprised of law enforcement leaders, retired admirals and generals, business executives, pastors, and prominent coaches and athletes who promote solutions that ensure our next generation of Americans will be citizen-ready. ReadyNation: Business, Kids, Workforce Business executives building a skilled workforce by promoting solutions that prepare children to succeed in education, work, and life
Supported by tax-deductible contributions from foundations, individuals, and corporations. Major funders:
Alliance for Early Success, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Betterment Fund, Bezos Family Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bingham Program, Boone Family Foundation, California Education Policy Fund, California Endowment, CME Group Foundation, Colorado Health Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Educate Maine, Ethel Klein and Ed Krugman, First Five Years Fund, George Gund Foundation, George Wallerstein and Julie Lutz, Goodstart Early Learning, Heising-Simons Foundation, Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, Jacobs Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, John T. Gorman Foundation, Kansas Health Foundation, Kresge Foundation, McCormick Foundation, Meadows Foundation, Methodist Ministries of South Texas, New Mexico Early Childhood Funders Group, Open Society Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Robert H. Dugger, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Sam L. Cohen Foundation, United Way of Greater Cincinnati, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce Foundation
Author: Sandra Bishop-Josef, Ph.D, Research Director Contributors: Mariana Galloway, Graphic Designer Tom Garrett, Communications Deputy Director David Kass, President Joseph McMahan, Texas State Director Evan Potler, Creative Director Miriam Rollin, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer Sara Watson, Ph.D., ReadyNation Global Director
January 2017 ©2017 Council For A Strong America. All Rights Reserved.
336,000
job openings in Texas without qualified applicants If current education and labor market trends continue, Texas will face a serious skills gap. Texas is midway through a decade in which 62 percent of the 4.8 million job openings in the state will require postsecondary education. But only 55 percent of Texans have this level of education, leaving a 7 percent gap. This gap translates into more than 336,000 open positions for which we won’t have qualified applicants, thus leaving business teams disrupted and making Texas less competitive. A pipeline of skilled workers will be hard to create when 11 percent of all Texas high school students fail to graduate on time. The rate for Hispanic students, who represent a rapidly growing proportion of the population, is worse, with 13.5 percent not graduating on time. The results will be costly for students, businesses, and our entire state–reflecting the price tags for remedial education, lowered lifetime earnings, and poorer tax receipts.
To reverse Texas’ skills-gap troubles, ReadyNation urges greater, researchproven investments in supports for young children’s learning and development, including high-quality pre-kindergarten and home visiting programs. The bottom line: The future of Texas’ economy depends upon the caliber of our workforce. If we expect to compete and succeed in the global marketplace, we must act now to ensure our businesses have the skilled workforce we need.
Many Texas Students Are Not Well-Prepared Although businesses have always needed workers proficient in the “3 Rs”–reading, writing, and arithmetic –today’s fast-paced, international marketplace requires even higher proficiency levels of these basic skills. But they are too often lacking, especially among those entering the workforce.
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• According to the “Nation’s Report Card”— the National Assessment of Educational Progress —only 28 percent of Texas 8th graders are proficient in reading, only 32 percent are proficient in math, and only 37 percent are proficient in science.1 • 11 percent of Texas high school freshmen fail to graduate within four years. The rate for Hispanic students, a growing population in the state, is worse: 13.5 percent not graduating on time.2
Texas’ Growing Skills Gap With education outcomes that need improvement and jobs that place an increasing emphasis on a variety of skills, how will the Texas workforce of the future fare? In the decade 2005 to 2015, Texas experienced strong job growth, adding over 2.1 million new jobs.3 However, this growth is beginning to slow down.4 One problem is the education level of the labor pool: only
Not enough qualified job applicants in Texas In the current decade more than half of job openings will require some level of postsecondary education, but many do not have this level of education.
4.8 Million Job Openings in Texas 62%
Positions that require some level of postsecondary education
55%
7%
Applicants that have some level of postsecondary education
COUNCIL FOR A STRONG AMERICA
Rising Education Requirements If current education and labor market trends continue, Texas will face a serious skills gap. The anticipated growth rates for occupations in Texas are skewed towards jobs that require more than a high school diploma.6 Consider these projections for Texas: Our state is midway through a decade, 2010-2020, in which there will be 4.8 million total job vacancies as a result of new jobs and openings from retirements and career switches.7 Among these will be many more job openings requiring postsecondary education (3 million), compared to openings for those with a high school education or less (1.8 million).8 Of the 4.8 million job openings in Texas in the current decade, 62 percent will require some level of postsecondary education— but only 55 percent of Texans have this level of education, leaving a 7 percent gap. Applying that gap to the 4.8 million job openings leaves more than 336,000 positions for which there won’t be qualified applicants, thus leaving business teams disrupted and making Texas less competitive. By far, the fastest growing industry in the decade is oil /gas/mining, with a growth rate of 48 percent, and these jobs increasingly require postsecondary education.9
SKILLS GAP 336,000 positions for which there won’t be qualified applicants
Source: Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce
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82 percent of adults have a high school diploma, a level second lowest in the nation.5
High Cost of the Skills Gap The lack of a skilled workforce comes at a high cost for individuals, businesses, and the economy. The unemployment rate for U.S. workers with only a high school diploma (8 percent) is more than twice as high as that for workers with a bachelor’s degree (2.8 percent). The wage gains from even some
postsecondary training are clear, as well: workers with an associate’s degree earn about $6,000 more per year than a high school graduate and nearly $16,000 more per year than a high school dropout.10 The situation in Texas is similar, with high demand, high pay positions tending to require either a bachelor’s degree or some form of post-secondary education or specific technical training.11
Closing the Skills Gap Through High-quality Early Care and Education Programs High-quality early care and education programs, including preschool and home visiting, can help children prepare for success in school and later life, including the workforce. Many disadvantaged families must rely on state—or federally-funded preschool to prepare their children for kindergarten. Home visiting, also known as parent coaching, teaches pregnant or new mothers how to give their children a healthy start in life. These voluntary programs target their efforts on children’s earliest years of life, when rapid brain development is occurring–synapses forming and neural pathways taking shape in ways that will support a lifetime of learning. High-quality programs include a focus on pre-reading, pre-math and social skills, through enjoyable, play-based activities appropriate for young children. Research demonstrates that focusing greater supports during this period of children’s development carries an enormous return on investment– while neglecting it incurs heavy costs. Research shows that children who participate in high-quality early care and education programs can do better on a range of outcomes. Some examples:
Texas:
• Children who participated in San Antonio’s pre-K program scored at or above the national average on kindergarten readiness, despite having started the program significantly below par.12 • Recent research examining more than 47,000 disadvantaged children found that those who had attended Texas public preschool scored higher on their 3rd grade reading assessments than children who attended half-day preschool or no preschool.13 • Children who participated in the Texas state pre-K program had increased math and reading scores in 3rd grade,14 and were less likely to be held back in school or to need special education.15 • Data from the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) home visting program in Texas show several positive health outcomes, including high rates of full-term birth, healthy birthweight, breastfeeding and receiving recommended immunizations.16
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Other:
• New Jersey’s preschool program serving disadvantaged school districts statewide reported that children in the program were three-quarters of a year ahead in math and two-thirds of a year ahead in literacy in 4th and 5th grades.17 • Investments in North Carolina’s preschool program were associated with a lower likelihood of special education placement when children were in grades 3, 4 and 5.18 And a Healthy Families America home visiting program in New York also helped reduce the number of children who needed special education.19 • Children attending Chicago’s ChildParent Centers preschool were 29 percent more likely to graduate from high school than non-participants, and Michigan’s Great Start Readiness state preschool program reported a 35 percent increase in graduates.20 • In studies in Memphis and Denver, the most high-risk mothers served by the home visiting program had children with better grade point averages and test scores in reading and math throughout elementary school, compared with children of similar mothers who did not receive NFP.21
The pre-k program saves Texas nearly $147 million each year, due to reductions in special education and children being held back in school. Studies of high-quality early education programs for at-risk children have shown that these programs can save society much more than they cost. A well-respected, independent cost-benefit analysis of more than 20 different studies of preschool programs showed that they can return, on average, a “profit” (economic benefits minus costs) to society of over $29,000 for every child served.22 In Texas, the pre-k program saves the state nearly $147 million each year, due to reductions in special education and children’s being held back in school.23 An analysis of the NFP home visiting program showed an average net benefit of over $6,000 for every family served.24
Conclusion Texas runs the risk of falling behind when it comes to preparing the future workforce to compete successfully in a global economy. Recognizing this risk, the state must take several steps to address the skills gap, and continue on that course. To meet the future demands of a more skilled and educated workforce, policymakers should continue to invest in what really works and support promising and evidence-based approaches that will ensure young people enter the workforce with the skills Texas businesses need.
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State policymakers should improve the quality of—and children’s access to—early care and education programs. If we are serious about securing Texas’ economic future, we must act now to provide our businesses with the highly-skilled workforce needed to innovate and grow in the increasingly global marketplace. COUNCIL FOR A STRONG AMERICA
1 NAEP state profiles 2015. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/ 2 Texas Education Agency. Four-year education and dropout data, class of 2015.http://tea.texas.gov/acctres/completion/2015/ level.html 3 Office of the Governor, Economic Development & Tourism Division (2016, June).The Texas advantage. Retrieved from: https:// texaswideopenforbusiness.com/sites/default/files/09/28/16/txadvantage.pdf 4 Hethcock, B. (2016, November 30). Comptroller: Texas economy, job growth is slowing. Dallas Business Journal. Retrieved from: http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2016/11/30/comptroller-texas-economy-jobs-growth-is-slowing.html 5 Forbes (n. d.). Best states for business Texas. http://www.forbes.com/places/tx/ 6 Carnevale, A.P., Smith, N. & Strohl, J. (June 2013). RECOVERY Job growth and education requirements through 2020. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Retrieved from: https://georgetown.app.box. com/s/kg8r28e48gsaw8ypplxp ; Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (2014, July). Workforce Capitalizing on our human assets. Retrieved from: https://www.scribd.com/document/234880879/Workforce-Capitalizing-on-Our-Human-Assets 7 Carnevale, A.P., Smith, N. & Strohl, J. (June 2013). RECOVERY Job growth and education requirements through 2020. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Retrieved from: https://georgetown.app.box. com/s/kg8r28e48gsaw8ypplxp 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016, March 15). Earnings and unemployment rates by educational attainment, 2015. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm 11 Texas Workforce Commission (2014). Report on Texas growth occupations. Retrieved from: http://www.twc.state.tx.us/files/twc/ annual-report-on-texas-growth-occupations-2014-twc.pdf 12 Edvance Research (2016, August 30). Pre-K for SA evaluation report year 3. Retrieved from: http://www.sanantonio.gov/ Portals/0/Files/PreK4SA/Pre-K%204%20SA_Year%203%20Evaluation%20Report.pdf 13 Children at Risk (2016). Pre-K in Texas: A critical component for academic success. Retrieved from: http://childrenatrisk.org/ content/?p=15565 14 Andrews, R. J., Jargowsky, P., & Kuhne, K. (2012, November). The effects of Texas’s targeted pre-kindergarten program on academic performance. Retrieved from: http://www.caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/wp-84.pdf ;Huston, A., Gupta, A., & Schexnayder, D. (2012, March). Study of early education in Texas The relationship of pre-k attendance to 3rd grade test results University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved from: http://raymarshallcenter.org/files/2012/03/ERC_Pre-K_April_7_2012.pdf 15 Andrews, R. J., Jargowsky, P., & Kuhne, K. (2012, November). The effects of Texas’s targeted pre-kindergarten program on academic performance. Retrieved from: http://www.caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/wp-84.pdf 16 Nurse-Family Partnership (2016). Nurse-Family Partnership in Texas. Retrieved from: http://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/ getattachment/communities/state-profiles/TX_State-(1).pdf.aspx 17 Barnett, W. S., Jung, K., Youn, M., &Frede, E. C. (2013, March 20). Abbott Preschool Program longitudinal effects study: Fifth grade follow-up. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey. Retrieved from: http://nieer.org/sites/nieer/files/APPLES%20 5th%20Grade.pdf 18 Dodge, K. A., Bai, Y., Ladd, H. F. and Muschkin, C. G. (2016), Impact of North Carolina’s Early Childhood Programs and Policies on Educational Outcomes in Elementary School. Child Dev. doi:10.1111/cdev.12645 19 Further studies are needed to confirm these findings, as these outcomes could have appeared by chance due to the large number of outcomes measured in the study: DuMont, K., Kirkland, K., MitchellHerzfeld, S., Ehrhard-Dietzel, S., Rodriguez, M. L., Lee, E., Layne, C., & Greene, R. (2010). A randomized trial of Healthy Families New York (HFNY): Does home visiting prevent child maltreatment? Rensselaer, NY: New York State Office of Children & Family Services and Albany, NY: The University of Albany, State University of New York. 20 Reynolds, A. J., Temple, J. A., Robertson, D. L., & Mann, E. A. (2001, May 9). Long-term effects of an early childhood intervention on educational achievement and juvenile arrest A 15-year follow-up of low- income children in public schools. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2339-2346; Michigan Great Start Readiness Program evaluation 2012: High school graduation and grade retention findings. Retrieved from http://bridgemi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GSRPevaluation-may-21-12. pdf 21 Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy
(2011, August). HHS’s Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program: Which program models identified by HHS as “Evidence-Based” are most likely to produce important improvements in the lives of children and parents? Retrieved from: http://coalition4evidence.org/wp-content/ uploads/2011/08/Review-of-8-hv-models- Aug2011- FINAL.pdf
22 Washington State Institute for Public Policy (2016, June). Benefit-cost summary State and district early education programs. Olympia, WA: Author. Retrieved from: http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/BenefitCost/Program/270 23 University of Texas at Austin, Child & Family Research Partnership (2015, April). Pre-k is good for kids and for Texas: Shortterm savings for pre-k estimated at nearly $147 million annually. Retrieved from: http://childandfamilyresearch.org/content/ uploads/CFRPBrief_B0160415_PreKSavingsTexas.pdf 24 Washington State Institute for Public Policy (2016, June). Benefit-cost summary Nurse-Family Partnership. Olympia, WA: Author. Retrieved from http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/BenefitCost/Program/35
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ReadyNation: Business, Kids, Workforce Business executives building a skilled workforce by promoting solutions that prepare children to succeed in education, work, and life 1108 Lavaca Street / Suite 110 1A-139 / Austin, TX 78701 / 512.257.7399 Council for a Strong America is a national, bipartisan nonprofit that unites five organizations comprised of law enforcement leaders, retired admirals and generals, business executives, pastors, and prominent coaches and athletes who promote solutions that ensure our next generation of Americans will be citizen-ready.
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