Career Connect TX
About Career Connect TX
Educate Texas launched WE CAN TX in March 2021 as a peer-learning network that sought to bring together leaders from across Texas to support learn-and-earn programs that led to livable-wage jobs. Our work has evolved over the past two years into a more comprehensive approach to work-based learning across the higher education and workforce continuum. We are proud to announce that we are relaunching WE CAN TX as Career Connect Texas (CCTX).
Career Connect TX will collaborate with leaders from community colleges and workforce organizations to develop and expand innovative, modern work-based learning experiences coupled with academic instruction that addresses employer needs in high-demand careers. These collaborative efforts will be simultaneously employer and student-centered by exemplifying the Career Connect TX tagline: Closing equity gaps and meeting workforce demands by connecting students to successful careers.
Career Connect Texas will promote the development, implementation, and scaling of career-connected learning experiences for current and future generations of Texans by delivering technical assistance to network members, providing peer learning opportunities, and leveraging strategic partnerships with industry, government, workforce and education leaders. Career Connect Texas will support access to innovative, modern work-based learning experiences by leveraging data visualization resources, integrating equity into program delivery, elevating the value of non-degree credentials in pathways, and promoting opportunities for sector-specific employer engagement.
Career Connect TX Goals
- Enhance Regional Capacity and Align to Employer Needs: Partners in each regional team will receive technical assistance to develop and expand work-based learning opportunities and infrastructure in high-demand industries.
- Innovate for Equity: Network members will receive guidance to design work-based learning programs that ensure equitable access and more successful outcomes for underserved and economically disadvantaged students of color.
- Scale and Sustain: Regional teams will expand and sustain the work by using common definitions and data, developing local backbones, establishing industry partnerships, and braiding funding from different education and workforce sources.
Career Connect TX Lead Partners
- Austin/Central Texas
- Workforce Solutions Capital Area
- Austin Community College
- Dallas/North Texas
- Dallas College
- North Central Texas College
- Tarrant County College
- Houston/Gulf Coast
- Lee College
- San Jacinto College
- Panhandle
- San Antonio
- Alamo Colleges District
- San Antonio Works
- South Texas
- West Texas
- Workforce Solutions West Central Texas
- El Paso Community College
What We Do
Career Connect TX provides the following services to lead organizations:
- Technical Assistance that enables programs to develop Quality Work-based Learning Pathways and Youth Apprenticeship Programs.
- Network Learning Activities that facilitate peer sharing to inform data collection and reporting, program design, integration of equity principles, and developing employer partnerships.
- Develop Partnerships with key stakeholders including statewide business and industry leaders, Tri-Agency Initiative, regional intermediaries, and national higher education and workforce partners, to support education to career pathways.
Network Resource
Career Connect TX Data Dashboard is designed to help network members identify key data metrics related to career connected learning via work-based learning for local communities and regions. The dashboard provides workforce and community college end-users a centralized education-to-workforce data source. The objectives of the dashboard are:
- Identify highest-priority data to understand education-to-workforce ecosystem,
- Include possible data sources that support common user cases, and
- Consolidate disparate sources of data to create a comprehensive picture at different geographic levels.