The Austin Chamber of Commerce released its 2012 Education Progress Reports on April 3, revealing that fewer students are meeting standards of state testing but that the region has made slight gains in graduation rates and college and career readiness during the past five years.
The chamber has partnered with school districts and other Central Texas chambers for the past eight years to compile annual reports of K–12 student performance data. At a luncheon at the Frank Erwin Center, Shaun Cranston, Education Progress Reports Task Force chairman, explained the chamber's core pillars are economic development, transportation and education.
"If we don't create a talented and educated workforce, the jobs that are being created by the economic development and the transportation system that's getting them there would be worthless," he said. "We spent a considerable amount of time, effort and resources to talk about what is the road we're taking as a community to get our youth where they need to be for industry."
Regional findings for 2011–12
