It’s not enough to lure businesses
Texas has been busy importing brains while neglecting to properly educate our own.
The end of the year has given the Lone Star State more bragging rights in its rivalry with California, as Silicon Valley giants Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced they are moving their headquarters to Texas. Billionaire Elon Musk also left the Golden State recently, joining his latest Tesla factory, being built outside of Austin, and SpaceX rocket development and testing in South Texas.
Musk is not alone in wanting to swap an Impossible Burger for an unbelievable brisket. More than 80,000 people last year traded California for Texas according to U.S. Census data. From 2007 to 2016 more than a million Californians left the state and its out-of-control real estate costs and high taxes — and Texas was their No. 1 destination.
After the Oracle announcement, Gov. Greg Abbott told CNBC that businesses are moving to Texas because “they are looking for a state that gives them the independence, the autonomy and the freedom to chart their own course.”
What he probably meant to say is they are coming because Texas is cheaper — our homes are cheaper, our payrolls are lower, and energy and environmental regulations are looser. Plus, as anyone who lives here can tell you, Texas is a rewarding place to live.
But amid all the back-patting, it’s important to remember that the success in recruiting businesses and people to Texas can’t paper over a host of areas that Texas continues to overlook.
Let’s start with our record of ignoring homegrown talent. Of course, Texas should welcome the influx of newcomers — wherever they come from — but for years, Texas has depended on those new workers to fill in gaps in our own workforce. That’s unsustainable, no matter how many people want to move here. If Texas wants to continue to grow — and to avoid becoming just a glorified suburb of California — it needs to build its homegrown talent and improve quality of life for all Texans.
Texas’ impressive economic growth has been fueled by an educated, adaptable and readily available workforce — it’s just that most of those workers are being recruited from outside our borders. That’s why nearly half of the state’s workers are not native Texans and why adults coming from out of state are much more likely to have a college degree or higher, according to a
report by the Dallas Federal Reserve.
Texas has been busy importing brains while neglecting to properly educate its own.
Among a group of 11 peer states — including California, New York, Florida and Illinois — Texas fares poorly in metrics such as fourth grade reading proficiency and educational attainment, according to a report by Texas 2036, a nonpartisan nonprofit whose CEO, Margaret Spellings, was U.S. secretary of education under President GeorgeW. Bush.
“We’ve always had work to do with our large, diverse and often poor student population, but we’ve been going in the wrong direction for a decade,” Spellings told the editorial board.
Less than half of Texas third graders read on grade level and the state is near the bottom nationally in fourth grade reading proficiency. Only half of Texas students are graduating from high school ready for postsecondary education, the Texas 2036 report found, and persistent achievement gaps exist based on student income, race, geography and language proficiency.
If we don’t begin to improve quickly, the forecast is dire. By the
middle of the next decade, 71 percent of jobs in Texas will require education beyond high school, reports Texas 2036. Today, only 32 percent of high school graduates earn a postsecondary credential within six years of graduating.
The Legislature took a step in the right direction last session with school finance reform, and lawmakers next year must not only avoid the temptation to retreat in the face of a budget shortfall brought on by the pandemic, but they must also do more to close the achievement gap and properly fund education for English language learners. That means investment in higher education, too, an area where Texas could learn a lot from California.
In fact, data from the National Science Foundation show Texas spends less per full-time pupil on public higher education than California, New York, Florida or Illinois — much less. It’s hardly surprising even with the imported workforce, the state lags all three peer states when it comes to the share of residents over 25 with bachelor’s degrees or more. Estimates released Dec. 10 by the Census Bureau show that 29.9 percent of Texans 25 or older have a bachelor’s degree, the
same share as in Florida, but that in California, Illinois and New York that share is much higher: 33.9 percent; 34.7 percent and 36.6 percent respectively.
If we really want to compete with peer states, Texas needs to focus on smarter investments in more than just education. Everything is interconnected and is a crucial part of any sustained economic development — from health care, where the state leads the nation in the number of uninsured, to robust transit investment to sensible environmental regulations. It’s impossible to have a strong workforce if you’re too sick to go to school or can’t get to your job on time.
As Texas reaches out across the nation to make its case to business to relocate here, it should pay attention to what other states are doing right.
No matter what, Texas is going to do things its way. For too long, that has meant papering over the cracks in our foundation with imported talent. But pragmatism and adapting to challenges is also the Texas way.
A little bragging about what we’re doing right is welcome, but it’s time to focus on what we need to do better.