Senator John Cornyn:

As residents, voters, and faith leaders we call on you as a Senior Senator representing Texas to ensure that the Senate votes on legislation that addresses the repeated gun violence plaguing our communities. HR8 and HR112 have already passed in the house. We ask you to bring these bills to the Senate for a vote, including the ones below once they pass the house:

• Enhance background checks (HR 1112 & HR 8);
• Ban high-capacity magazines (HR 1186);
• Pass a federal “red flag” law to prevent those deemed a risk to themselves or others from accessing firearms (HR 1236).

[Excerpt]

Last week, the New York Times highlighted a workforce training program in San Antonio called Project QUEST that helps hundreds of people every year move out of poverty and into sustainable employment. A recent analysis of the program was particularly encouraging. Nine years after entering training, participants are still experiencing high rates of employment and earning over $5,000 more annually than a similar group that didn’t participate in the program. Such outcomes are rare in workforce development programs.

The Times article came out just as AEI’s Vocation, Career, and Work research team began discussions with Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas, an organization that uses a model similar to Project QUEST. Capital IDEA has been working with low-income families in Austin for more than 20 years to move workers from low-wage to middle-skill jobs. In 2018, program graduates earned an average starting wage of $22 per hour. A previous analysis of the program has found sustained wage gains at least four years after program completion.

[Photo Credit: RealClear Policy]

Note: Capital IDEA is a long-term workforce development program established by Austin Interfaith.  Project QUEST was established by COPS/Metro in San Antonio.

In Austin, a Public/Private Partnership for Workforce Success, RealClear Policy 

[Excerpt]

The economic odds facing Avigail Rodriguez a few years ago couldn’t have been much worse. An undocumented immigrant and a single mother, she lived in a cramped apartment in a tough neighborhood in San Antonio and earned just $9 an hour working as a nurse’s assistant.

Today, Ms. Rodriguez, 26, owns her own home in a safer area, earns nearly three times as much as she did before and has secured legal residency. The key to her turnaround was a training program called Project Quest, whose own ability to beat the odds is no less striking than that of Ms. Rodriguez.Project Quest has succeeded where many similar retraining efforts have failed, taking workers lacking in skills and successfully positioning them for jobs where they can earn double or triple what they did previously.

“This really gives employers a chance to find workers they wouldn’t otherwise have considered,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University. “At the same time, it provides opportunities to a rather disadvantaged group of workers, both younger and older.”

....

Project Quest was born 27 years ago in a Hispanic neighborhood in San Antonio where poverty rates are above the citywide average. After the closing of a Levi Strauss factory there, community groups [COPS/Metro] created Project Quest as a way of preparing workers for better-paying, more highly skilled jobs that were less vulnerable but still in demand.

[Photo Credit: Joanna Kulesza, New York Times]

Job Training Can Save Lives. See How San Antonio Does It., New York Times [pdf]

Note: Originally established by COPS/Metro in San Antonio, Project Quest is one of several IAF workforce development projects supported by the Texas ACE Fund.

During the 2019 legislative session, Texas IAF leaders advanced efforts to generate millions in infrastructure dollars for Texas' poorest families. 

At the urging of Texas IAF leaders, Democratic Senators Eddie Lucio, Jr. and Juan Hinojosa, and Republican Senator Charles Perry from Lubbock, co-authored Senate Bill 2452 and Senate Joint Resolution 79, to allow the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) to use money from the Economically Distressed Areas Program (EDAP) to bring millions of dollars to economically distressed areas to cover most of the costs to provide access to drinking and waste water services. 

These bills passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers and on June 14, Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill.  

An essential first step in making infrastructure funds available to the poorest communities in Texas, passage of the bill puts a proposed constitutional amendment on the statewide November 2019 ballot. 

EDAP was first created by Valley Interfaith, EPISO and West Texas Organizing Strategy, with sister Texas IAF organizations in 1989 -- and is the result of similar bi-partisan work with state senators and representatives.  EDAP legislation allows the state to sell bonds to invest in water and wastewater services in “colonias” and other low-income areas throughout the state.  

The proposed amendment must now pass in November in order to allow the State to borrow money on behalf of economically distressed communities.  

[In photo: (left) Reverend Kevin Collins, pastor of St. Eugene of Mazenod Catholic Church and leader with Valley Interfaith (photo courtesy of Rio Grande Guardian); (right) Rev. Alfonso Guevara, pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and leaders with Valley Interfaith (photo by Fountain of Mercy Ministries]

Oped: Investing Millions of Dollars in Economically Distressed Areas, Rio Grande Guardian [pdf]

One month after 300 Texas IAF leaders descended on the Capitol to call for investments in human development, delegations have been visiting the Capitol daily to engage legislators around school finance, the ACE fund, payday lending and infrastructure support for economically distressed areas. 

Legislative allies in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso crafted a proposed constitutional amendment providing for the issuance of bonds by the Texas Water Development Board for projects in economically distressed areas.  The proposal is almost to the finish line.

With ACE funding already in the draft budget, leaders are working to restore it to its original $10 Million.  When economist Marc Elliot from Economic Mobility delivered a presentation on the effectiveness of the Project QUEST job training model at the Capitol, representatives from over a dozen legislative offices attended. 

The QUEST model is hailed as the hitting on a "formula with a proven track record" and Texas IAF organizations across the state have applied it in Houston, Dallas, Austin, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.

Texas ACE Fund Return on Investment, Texas IAF

Nine Year Gains: Project Quest's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled into Middle Class, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Not All Programs Fade: New Report on Project QUEST RCT Shows Sizable None-Year Earnings Gains for Low-Income Workers, Straight Talk on Evidence [pdf]

Solid Evidence for Career Pathways Out of Poverty, CLASP [pdf] 

[Excerpt below]

"Programs to train low-skilled, underemployed adults to move up the economic ladder are notoriously ineffective, but Project Quest in San Antonio has hit on a formula with a now-proven track record.

Helping people move from poverty to the middle class is not easy, nor is it quick. But a sustained effort can take a 30-something single mom with a high school education from $10,721 a year in wages to $27, 187 in just five years after graduation. After four more years, she can make $33,644.

In a nine-year longitudinal study, Project Quest participants made more money, obtained more skills and worked more hours than a demographically-identical control group.

“To see earning differences this large and for this long is unprecedented in the workforce development field,” said Mark Elliott, CEO of the Economic Mobility Corp., an independent organization that studied the program."

In photo above, COPS/Metro leader Sr. Consuelo Tovar fights for local funding of Project QUEST.  [Photo Credit: Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News]  In bottom photos, trainees learn to cradle a newborn and conduct PERRLA evaluations.  [Photo Credit: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News]

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled into Middle Class, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation [pdf]

Texas ACE Fund Return on Investment, Texas IAF

Since 1992, IAF labor market intermediaries have put low-income workers into high-paying careers in health care, technology and trades. The Economic Mobility Corporation recently released a 14-year “gold standard” randomized control test of San Antonio’s Project QUEST, the flagship labor market intermediary for the IAF.   

Study authors assert that “Project QUEST has demonstrated the largest, sustained earnings impacts ever found in a rigorous evaluation of a workforce development program. These findings provide conclusive evidence that investing in the skills of low-income workers not only can make a difference, it can move families out of poverty into the middle class.”  

Inspired by the success of Project Quest in San Antonio, IAF leaders have established an additional nine projects in the West and Southwest US: Capital IDEA in Austin; Project ARRIBA in El Paso; VIDA in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; JobPath in Tucson; NOVA in Northeast Louisiana, Skills-Quest in Dallas; Capital IDEA-Houston; Project IOWA and Arizona Career Pathways.  In 2014, DuPage County United launched its own labor market intermediary, Career Connect Metro West.

Collectively, these institutions have trained and placed tens of thousands of adults in living wage jobs which pay, on average, $40,000 annually plus benefits and a career path.  This number is expected to grow as the West / Southwest IAF expands this strategy further. 

In photos at right, trainees learn to cradle a newborn and conduct PERRLA evaluations at Project QUEST in San Antonio.  [Photo Credit: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News]

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation (2019)

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled into Middle Class, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Not All Programs Fade: New Report on Project QUEST RCT Shows Sizable Nine-Year Earnings Gains for Low-Income Workers, Straight Talk on Evidence [pdf]

Solid Evidence for Career Pathways Out of Poverty, CLASP [pdf] 

Rev. Darrell Lewis from The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) and Rev. Olin Knudsen from Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI), both from the Network of Texas IAF Organizations, testified before the House Pensions, Investments & Financial Services Committee to oppose House Bill 3292.  Both pastors argued that payday loans are immoral and spoke of how predatory loans trap families in their congregations in vicious cycles of debt.

Since 1992, workforce intermediaries associated with the Texas IAF have put low-income parents into high-paying careers in health care, technology and trades.  The Economic Mobility Corporation released a “gold standard” randomized control test for nearly 14 years of San Antonio’s Project QUEST, the model labor market intermediaries in Austin, Dallas, Houston, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley. 

Study authors assert that “Project QUEST has demonstrated the largest, sustained earnings impacts ever found in a rigorous evaluation of a workforce development program. These findings provide conclusive evidence that investing in the skills of low-income workers not only can make a difference, it can move families out of poverty into the middle class.”  

This validates the State of Texas' match of local support of Project QUEST (and its sister intermediaries throughout Texas) through the Texas Innovative Adult Career Education (ACE) Grant Program, in Article III of the budget. 

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation (2019)