Why Employer Input Should Drive School Curriculum — Not the Other Way Around

Most schools build a curriculum and then hope employers find the graduates useful. Mike Feinberg, co-founder of WorkTexas and the KIPP charter network, runs that process in reverse — and says the difference shows up directly in hiring numbers.

WorkTexas, the Houston-based nonprofit Feinberg co-founded in 2020, builds every course around what local employers say they actually need. More than 100 companies across industries have contributed to the program’s curriculum, spelling out not just which certifications matter but what day-to-day competencies new hires are consistently missing.

“We are employer-focused,” Feinberg says. “Our mission is to help people get and keep jobs — and advance in careers.”

That framing puts WorkTexas at odds with how most training programs measure themselves. When Feinberg asked community colleges and trade schools whether their programs were working, the typical answer pointed to certificate completion rates. He pressed further: how many of those certificate holders actually got jobs? Workforce and education leaders who have heard Feinberg describe this exchange say it captures a blind spot the field has been slow to address.

“They say, ‘97.8% of our students earn a certificate.’ How many of those people got jobs? Crickets,” Feinberg said. “We didn’t want to fall into that trap.”

The WorkTexas training model tracks graduates for at least five years after they complete a program — monitoring not just initial employment but wage growth and career advancement. That long view, Feinberg argues, is the only honest way to know whether a training program is doing its job.

Feinberg’s argument connects to a wider debate about the global skills gap between what education systems produce and what labor markets need. For Feinberg, the fix isn’t abstract — it’s sitting employers down at the table before a single lesson is written.