Aligning education and workforce systems is goal of a bill receiving committee approval

Go to school, then go get a job. Rather than treating those as different phases of life, a House bill aims to better align education and workforce systems to help students learn outside the four walls of the classroom.

Rep. Patricia Mueller

Rep. Patricia Mueller (R-Austin) says students are better served when school and work aren’t treated as separate tracks but integrated into a talent development system, so her bill would require four state agencies to collaborate on creating a statewide student career pathways framework.

Under HF3650, as amended, the Office of Higher Education and the Departments of Education, Employment and Economic Development, and Labor would be tasked to build that framework with a report due to the Legislature by Jan. 15, 2028.

Approved Thursday by the House Workforce, Labor, and Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee, the bill is headed to the House Education Finance Committee.

The framework would include examining barriers to experiential learning, updating shared guidance on the permissible use of federal funds and developing tools such as personal learning plan templates, suggesting model practices, and providing resources to support equitable access to career-connected learning. The framework would strengthen connections to postsecondary and workforce opportunities, including dual enrollment, experiential learning, skills training, and apprenticeships.

“This bill intentionally asks those four agencies to collaborate, to remove barriers, and to create a statewide framework for student career pathways,” Mueller said. Those could be as simple as compiling a databank of internships or as complicated as rethinking a high school schedule.

The goal, she said, is to move out of a siloed approach by having the four entities talk to each other. She pointed to Colorado’s Reimagining Futures initiative as an example of how states can align education and workforce systems to enrich both.

Austin High School Principal Matt Schmit said students need structured, early support to explore careers meaningfully. To ask a 14 year old to know what they want to do is impossible, he told lawmakers, and often results in students using college as “the most expensive career exploration possible.”

A yearlong seminar to help ninth graders identify their skills, explore occupations, and build an educational plan is required at the school.

But effective career exploration, he said, “requires structure, requires staff time, requires partnerships, and systems to monitor progress. And if no one is responsible for monitoring it, it doesn’t get done.”