A recent bizjournals study that ranks the brainpower levels of America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas places Houston 83rd with a brainpower index of 41.05. Madison, Wisconsin topped the list with an index of 57.80. Washington and San Jose were right behind Madison. Washington boasts the nation’s largest share of adults with advanced degrees, 22.2%, while San Jose follows close behind with just under 20%. Outside of Austin, most Texas cities faired poorly in this survey with high school dropouts outnumbering college graduates by a margin of over 2:1.
So why does a blog devoted to technology startups care about this? If you even ask that question, you’ve made my point. Almost every “so called” startup expert points to certain required elements, one of which is proximity to centers of higher learning.
Education is extremely important to me both as a startup advocate and as a father. Having been less than 2 years through the Houston public school system with our oldest, we have placed our children’s future in the hands of private education. Things seem so bad to me that I now wonder if the film Idiocracy is not a very topical and intelligent docudrama (who knew Beavis and Butthead were statement pieces).
Enough about me…what do you think?
Private education is the way to go. I have been placed in private education my entire life. The student-teacher relationship at a private school is remarkably different than one in a public school.
I feel comfortable approaching a teacher for extra help. And not only are the willing to help, they WANT to help. Just recently, I was studying with a group of friends for a Spanish test. We had a question at 10pm the night before the test. Without any resistance, we called up the teacher on his cell phone and he was happy to help. That is a huge differentiator from private to public school. My ‘public school’ friends wouldn’t dare to call up a teacher at 10pm the day before a test.
Private school (at least the one I attend) seems to offer so much more freedom than public school. In my entire high school career, I have never heard any faculty or staff member say, “this matter is not in your hands”. At our school, the students create (clubs, events, dances, dress code, trips, field days, etc.) and the teachers support.
With freedom, does come responsibility.
Private schools are fine for those that can afford them. However, Houston (and Texas as a whole) needs good schools for all her children if we are to continue to grow, attract business, attract entrepreneurs, attract VC, etc. And yet, for some reason, this state has a “starve the schools” policy. In 2005, Texas spent something like $7000 per K-12 student compared to Massachusetts, which spent $11,000.
I’m a graduate of Rice, which is aggressive in supporting entrepreneurship. But one small private university is not enough. Houston, and Texas, need better public schools, from kindergarten on up, for all its citizens. This will result in better colleges, more graduates, more advanced degree earners, etc.
Interesting … But Don’t Panic
It is always important to be aware of these statistics, but simply stacking the census data this way doesn’t tell the whole story. And I think Bizjournal’s clever “Brainpower Rating” is a misleading name. Here are a few examples:
1. By ranking on “per capita” basis, you really get no sense of scale. If you ranked in terms of real numbers, Houston has more than 10X the number of professionals with advanced degrees than Madison. Surely there is economic value in a “critical mass” of large numbers.
2. The ranking has something to say about the education process, but that’s not what it measures. People (with advanced degrees, especially) are mobile. Cities like Houston can attract talent a lot better than higher-ranked cities like Lancaster, PA or Worcester, MA.
3. Other surveys that use other metrics (e.g., number of patents filed or number of “star scientists”) rate Houston very high worldwide.
I don’t disagree that the Texas public education system is broken, and I absolutely believe that public education is vital to our future economy. I am also an advocate for a Tier 1 university in our region. But, keeping things in perspective, this survey is seriously flawed and vastly underrepresents Houston’s “brainpower”.
Cliff is right. What matters is sheer numbers of educated, not percentages. Should Houston shut down the Ship Channel, drive out all blue collar employers, and condemn and evacuate the eastern half of the metro? Of course not, but that would make our rankings look a whole lot better. If stupid actions improve your ranking, then I’m thinking the ranking system is pretty flawed…
First off, I never intended for this post to be a referendum on the Houston public school system, although it definitely is lacking and we all agree on that matter.
There are several points that are made in the comments that I don’t agree with:
@Cliff, there were plenty of cities, including the largest in NYC, that scored significantly higher than Houston so I do not take your “per capita” argument as legitimate. Second of all, mobile workers would be included in the numbers so mobility apparently has not played in Houston’s favor. Your point about the patenting is valid and definitely not represented in this report.
@Tory, I disagree that sheer numbers outweigh percentages. Numbers, as do most things in life, need to be put in perspective. When Houston’s high school drop-outs outnumber college graduates by a greater than 2:1 ratio, there is a problem that is bigger than our blue collar workforce. Nobody is advocating deporting those workers to make the numbers look better (come on, are you kidding me?); rather, I would advocate a greater focus on making education more relevant to those workers while also increasing funding for higher education in and around town to create a better incentive for students to obtain degrees and stick around afterwards.
Great discussion…let’s keep it up. I know there are some other opinions out there.
I’m familiar with this topic from my blog, Houston Strategies. The east and west coasts have used aggressive land-use regulation to drive up housing prices and minimize multi-family housing (like apartments). That has driven many lower income - and therefore less educated - workers elsewhere, especially Texas with it’s affordable and open free markets in real estate - not to mention just an all around affordable cost of living and pro-business culture. That dilutes the educated numbers in Texas (not to mention the immigration issue).
Now you can argue whether it’s good or bad for Texas to be the land of opportunity for the “huddled masses”, but I object to any statistical ranking that says, for example, a metro of a million educated plus 2 million uneducated (33%) somehow has “less brainpower” than a city of 500K educated + 500K uneducated (50%). Clearly the first one has twice as much total brainpower. If you determined the employment of your company by taking a random sampling of people off the street, you might have an argument for the second city being better. But as long as companies go through a filtering process of choosing their employees, more sheer numbers to select from are always better.
That said, we all agree Houston and Texas must to do a better job educating a large workforce of disadvantaged immigrants and minorities.
Great conversation. It’s important, and timely.
My point was not that the percentage is irrelevant, just that it doesn’t tell the whole story. I think there is a wealth of brainpower in Houston, and it shows in the dynamic business environment. As for mobility, I only meant that the two factors (post-grads v. drop-outs) aren’t related in any fixed relationship to one another.
I was thinking about the “low cost of living” factor as well. I’m glad that Tory had the data to explain that issue. Cost of living explains how some of the high-ranked cities (NY, Boston, SF, DC) maintain such a high per capita rating — no one else can afford to live there.
Another factor is the geographical size of Houston. I’d wager that you can find a “Madison” in Midtown Houston, if you broke the data out that way. So how do we promote/publicize sub-regions in our sprawl?
The real issues with drop-out rates and subpar schools point to a different critical issue about about disparity of incomes and opportunities in our region. That should be a concern for everyone as we grow.