How Lubbock ISD Analyzed the ROI of CTE Pathways to Inform Decision-Making
Lubbock ISD was faced with a challenge: Texas’ new accountability system set higher standards for a district to receive an “A” rating, requiring a higher percentage of College, Career, and Military Readiness graduates than ever before. At the same time, facing declining enrollment and fewer dollars, district leaders knew they needed to think critically about how to use limited resources.
District leaders took swift action by conducting a data-driven analysis to determine which CTE pathways had the best return on investment, so they could identify tradeoffs that met two priorities: improving student experiences and outcomes, and achieving financial sustainability.
What makes a pathway a good ROI? Lubbock used local labor market statistics and district data to determine whether jobs in each pathway were high growth, high wage, and had a high market share, and whether the pathways had an above-median share of completers and concentrators.
This process revealed important insights and identified several action steps, including improving the highest-ROI pathways, combining pathways that had complex staffing and scheduling demands, and sunsetting lower-ROI pathways. This allowed district leaders to focus on offerings that were most impactful to students and the community, while maximizing available resources.
See how Lubbock completed the analysis of its CTE pathways, determined the right action steps and tradeoffs, and communicated this process to the community.
This report is made possible by the Walton Family Foundation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Foundation.
Related Resources
- Redesigning the High School Experience: By redesigning high schools, district leaders can re-engage students, improve teacher experiences, and foster connections between schools and communities.
- Return on Investment in Education: Our ROI process equips system leaders with the process and data needed to make collaborative, data-driven investment decisions about how to strategically allocate resources.
- The Opportunities (and Challenges) of Organizing for College and Career Readiness: See how high schools can organize scheduling, staffing, and course sequences to strengthen college and career readiness opportunities that actually respond to student and community needs.