Seeking strategies

Adopting the best education ideas around is imperative to lifting Texas’ public schools.

Finland is touted as having one of the best education systems in the world. So is South Korea. While it’s important to look for the best education ideas globally, we don’t always have to go to exotic places. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has hatched a collaboration that is worth watching.

The nonprofit Commit! Partnership, organized four years ago, has helped revamp the fragmented educational landscape in Dallas County by bringing together 185 partners across sectors including not only area school districts but also colleges, foundations, charter networks, nonprofits, businesses and civic entities. The group strategically considers how to educate area students from cradle to career. The coalition doesn’t tell the nine districts that it works with what to do. Its role is similar to that of a personal trainer, in this case using data and convening power to highlight gaps and encourage collective action.

By breaking down silos, a well-oiled collaboration has the potential to promote the most effective use of public and private resources. It can create awareness of best practices. It can encourage the alignment of philanthropy and public spending toward the greatest levers for change.

Squeezing the most out of every dollar is more important than ever after last week’s ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that our broken finance system for public education is constitutional. The court’s decision makes it less likely that the Legislature will intervene to provide the public dollars needed to meet the goal set by the state for 60 percent of 25to 34-year-olds to hold a postsecondary degree or certificate by 2030. Currently, only 38 percent of Texans between those ages have such a credential. So a cooperative effort like Commit! is key.

The partnership has identified achievements gaps that Dallas-area students must bridge in order to have a better chance of achieving the 60 x 30 goal. It has collected targeted data around these gaps and then convened partners to develop strategies to help DISD and the other districts overcome them.

Take pre-K. Ninety percent of brain development occurs before age five, but only 5 percent of state education funding goes to that age group. The partnership launched Early Matters Dallas, based on Houston’s effort, and DISD’s board subsequently elected to become the first district to mandate that all 3- and 4-yearolds will have access to free pre-K, either directly or in partnership with private providers by 2025. The partnership is also supporting the local community college system’s launch of an Early Childhood Institute to train early childhood teachers.

At the other end of the educational spectrum, data showed that DISD’s six-year college completion rate of 21 percent trailed the 60 x 30 goal but that early college programs in DISD have a college completion rate more than two times greater. In response, DISD has just announced eight new early-college programs enrolling 1,000 kids annually starting this fall. Two campuses additionally feature a corporate partner that will provide mentorships and internships and interviews for the kids graduating with not only their high school degree but their associates’ degree.

Not every aspect of the partnership’s efforts may be right for Houston; some may not even be a departure from what HISD and other local districts are already doing. But Houston needs to be watching, learning and adopting the best educational ideas — yes, even from notso-exotic Big D.