Bills boost training for jobs

Proposed program would train workers faster in skills local companies need.

The proposal to bring more career and technical education classes into public high schools has headlined the Legislature’s workforce-development efforts, but a pair of bills heard in committee this week could bolster a wider array of job-training programs.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Texas House and Senate heard testimony on pair of companion bills that would establish the Texas Fast Start Program — an initiative designed to train workers faster and in the skills local industries need most.

The program would bring community colleges and public institutions together with employers to identify and craft training programs for needed skills. But it would also allow students to advance through classes as they master various skills, rather than requiring a arbitrary number of hours in classrooms or labs.

“Train to standards, don’t train to time,” said Sen. Brian Birdwell, sponsor of the Senate version.

Once up and running, such competency-based approaches would allow students to move more rapidly through training programs and into paying jobs, said Rep. John Davis, R-Houston, who sponsored the House version.

As currently conceived, the Fast Start initiative would have the Texas Workforce Commission and the Higher Education Coordinating Board hammer out a program that would operated and award college credits through the state’s community colleges and other public institutions. Funding would come from existing sources at those groups and, possibly, from a program in the state comptroller’s office.

The state might also pull down some federal funding for this type of program, said Larry Temple, executive director of the workforce commission.

Texas State Technical College has already worked with state agencies to create a prototype of what a Fast Start program might look like, said Michael Reeser, the school’s chancellor.

“What we’re doing with this that makes it different is we’re trying to take college credit, which is conventionally delivered in calendar-based chunks — what we call semesters,” Reeser said, “and we replace that with a competency-based system in which the students get to train to mastery, as fast or