Addressing Dallas County's Workforce Challenges Through Education And Partnerships

Only one-in-three Dallas County residents age 25-34 currently earns a living wage, an inflation-adjusted benchmark for meeting basic needs in the region currently set at roughly $58,000. The average Dallas County high school graduate earns significantly less than that, unless he or she has some sort of degree or certification.

How can school systems, higher education institutions and state policymakers respond to this data to increase postsecondary success and, ultimately, economic mobility?

That is the question raised by our recent report co-published with D Magazine and the subject of a recent panel discussion hosted by Dallas ISD at its Career Institute North in honor of the report’s publication. The innovative career-technical education campus, one of four evenly distributed across the large school district, is itself an embodiment of the student-centered innovations being put into practice across our region to address this issue.

“I'm so glad we're holding [this discussion] here,” said Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde. “This lets our community know that we're not just talking about changing how we educate, we're doing things.”

Elizalde said the 18 certification pathways on offer at the institute are made possible by close partnerships with Dallas College and local industries. The importance of maintaining trusting relationships with leaders in different sectors was a key theme throughout the evening.

“There are multiple systems that are impacting the students of today,” said Commit Chief Regional Impact Officer Chelsea Jeffery. “And while those systems have the best intentions, they are designed to get the results that we're seeing. How do we think about changing those systems and allowing them to come together and collaborate like we see Dallas College [and our local ISDs] doing to really impact the students of today?”

Tiffany Kirksey, vice provost of educational partnerships at Dallas College, gave a concrete example of how local institutions are coming together to better support students to attain credentials: “We're working right now on a transfer collaborative with many of our four-year partners to ensure that when students walk into Dallas College, they're prepared to transfer... So we take what's a real complicated puzzle and simplify it to ensure that they can move along their journeys.”

Encouragingly, this type of creative approach to student support is incentivized by our state funding system for community colleges. Under the recently passed House Bill 8, community colleges receive additional funding for each student that successfully graduates or transfers to a four-year institution. That amount multiplies for successful students who are academically or economically disadvantaged and for adult learners.

“We recognize that there's still an adult population that didn't get the things we're talking about right now,” Kirksey said, referring to a data point in the report that 45% of Dallas County residents have some college but no degree. “There are coaches that are set aside to work with that population, to talk about trade opportunities, career and technical education, ways that you can navigate a collegiate experience while still being a parent, a caretaker or a full-time employee. Having these types of programs creates pathways and opportunities for our community.”

Another recurring theme of the discussion was summarized by Elizalde: “I can't choose a path when I don't even know that path exists.” That's why she, as well as Kirksey, highlighted the value of close partnerships with employers: “There are a ton of high wage jobs right now sitting open in our community... We can place every one of our kids in those jobs if people continue to partner with us.”

Elizalde also said “this isn't a scarcity model,” and by promoting economic mobility our entire region stands to benefit. Her words echo another key data point from the report: If we supported all of our high school seniors to attain postsecondary credentials, the result could add up to $13 billion in economic growth in Dallas County for each graduating class.

An example of this positive impact on the community is Karla Garcia, a Dallas ISD graduate, former board trustee and manager of college access and success for the Dallas County Promise: “I grew up in a household that was way below that [living wage] number. Two weeks after graduating with my bachelor's degree and starting an entry level associate job at a nonprofit, I had already surpassed my family income. That to me is the power of education: transforming generational outcomes.”

“Living wage transcends a paycheck,” she said. “It means literally the dignity to determine your own life outcomes... And that is the true value of the credentials that are coming out of career institutes like these.”