High schoolers in Texas have over 500 state-approved industry certifications they can pursue. But not all are treated equally.
Recent changes to the way Texas grades public high schools has changed the weight of two law enforcement credentials students can earn by the time they turn 18 years old: county jailer and telecommunications license. These certifications are now ranked as the lowest “tier” industry-based certifications that high schoolers can earn to demonstrate “readiness” for life after graduation.
This is despite a growing demand for county jailers across Texas and a 40% pay increase since 2022 and high interest from students in high school law enforcement programs.
“Some kids — they just want to be more informed citizens,” said Tom Carnes, a criminal justice teacher at Madison High School in the North East Independent School District. Others want to go straight to work out of high school, biding their time until they can enroll in a police academy, pay their way through college or start a career of public service with government benefits.
Carnes’ criminal justice classes are usually full. He teaches four different criminal justice classes at Madison, with about 120 students overall. His program is all about getting students ready for a job in law enforcement and culminates in a telecommunications licence from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
During a recent Tuesday morning, juniors and seniors shuffled into his “Crisis Communications” class to learn about crisis negotiations.
The classroom walls were mosaics of criminal justice infographics. One read “The Serial Killer Murder Cycle,” another broke down the basics of “Money Laundering.” The Bill of Rights clung to a window.
“I’ve always wanted to be a police officer or FBI agent, and so this is like the high school version of all of that,” said Emily Lair, a junior at Madison and member of the SAPD Explorers program where young adults can see what it’s like to be a police officer.
“I want to go to community college to finish whatever boring credits I need… and then go to university and study criminal negotiations and law enforcement.”
Juniors Jazlyn Pesina-Sanchez and Guadalupe Soledad G. sat at a different table. They both said they enrolled in Carnes’ class because they want to study law.
A few seats over, David Ankrom paid close attention, raising his hand to answer questions. His dad was a corrections officer in Virginia.
“So I’ve always had an interest in law enforcement,” said Ankrom, who is also in the SAPD Explorers program and would eventually like to work for the city’s police force.
How high schools show ‘readiness’
When the Texas Education Agency updated its public school accountability system in 2023, one of the biggest changes fell to high schools and the way they show “college, career and military readiness,” also known as CCMR.
Unlike elementary and middle schools, which primarily use standardized testing scores in the accountability system, high school ratings are a combination of test scores and CCMR. The goal is for each high school grad to earn one CCMR point, which can take several different forms throughout their time in high school and what they do after leaving.
As part of that 2023 refresh, state officials significantly raised the bar on how many students had to earn a CCMR point for a campus to get an ‘A.’ They also revised how students could show they were college ready, putting more emphasis on early college credit and penalizing the use of remedial classes, especially for math.
To earn a CCMR point for military readiness, JROTC students now have to score high enough on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery exam and then enroll in the military. Before the changes, enrolling right out of high school was enough.
On the career side, Texas revised the list of industry-based certifications schools can offer and actually earn CCMR credits for. Then the state tiered that list, making some certifications more valuable than others depending on what kind of careers and wages students could get through them.
A “Tier 1” certification weighs more than a “Tier 2,” and a “Tier 3” certification weighs the least, requiring students to earn a full CCMR point through different pathways.
CCMR changes were plenty, so high schools have been adjusting in small increments.
The new industry certification list was published and went into effect last year, and the new way certifications are weighed won’t be reflected in a high school’s rating until the 2027 batch of A-F scores drop.
Potentially complicating matters even further, Texas also capped how many Tier 3 certifications can be used to calculate CCMR to 5% of all certifications, but that won’t take effect until 2028, said a TEA spokesperson. TEA also doesn’t plan to update the certification list again until 2030, even though the list has been reviewed every two years in the past.
“The idea of having it fixed for five years is helpful for school districts to be able to work through and build programs around,” said Phil Steinert, senior director of career and technical education at North East ISD. “But it’s not helpful to the workforce when suddenly it shifts.”
School officials say the changes are mostly good, since they push school districts to do more to make sure students are ready for life after graduation, whether that’s a traditional college path, enlisting in the armed forces or going into a trade.
The new system also allows for schools to “collect” more CCMR points if a student shows “readiness” in several areas, for example a student who earned several college credits and an industry-based certification, or a student who earned a certification and then enrolled in the military.
“It’s a great new lever to be able to pull when it comes to accountability,” said Steinert. “But really to be able to encourage more students to have a wider array of the different industries and different career opportunities that are available.”
But school officials are also worried that the new system minimizes “viable” pathways. The two approved law enforcement certifications on the state’s approved list are Tier 3 pathways, largely because those pathways didn’t lead to very high earning jobs when they were evaluated.
The most recent available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows telecommunications dispatchers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels region make an average of $50,200 a year. Correctional officers and jailers make an average of $52,580.
“I really hope something changes because I wouldn’t want students to get discouraged from pursuing careers in law enforcement,” said Mario Ferron, the career and technical education administrator for Southside ISD, which also offers law enforcement certifications.
“We wouldn’t want districts not to offer this just because it wouldn’t provide the same amount of CCMR points as other programs, and it cannot possibly offer CCMR points at the rate of other programs.”
A Tier 3 certification, like the county jailer and telecommunications license for example, would be the equivalent of taking a single AP CollegeBoard exam when calculating a student’s CCMR point, said Steinert.
How San Antonio schools are responding
To make law enforcement programs more lucrative when it comes to CCMR scores, San Antonio schools are exploring ways to pair the program with a second industry certification pathway or with dual credit courses.
“All the students — we are trying to make sure that they have two ways of earning CCMR. If one of them doesn’t work, they have a Plan B,” said Atikah Shemshack, superintendent of Jubilee Academies, a charter network which has three pre K-12 campuses in San Antonio.
Jubilee Academies recently launched an early college high school program at their campus Jubilee San Antonio, and is generally expanding dual credit and AP classes across the network.
Southside ISD is also looking into pairing the law enforcement certification with some sort of college credits.
“The only way to manage is to offer dual credit, which is exactly what we’re planning to do,” Ferron said.
What schools are not doing is sunsetting or disinvesting from their law enforcement programs.
“That’s a no-no. You don’t take away the opportunity for a student to get an industry-based certification, even if the state ranks it at a tier three,” said Yvonne Benton, executive director of postsecondary success at San Antonio ISD.
“The state’s capping it. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t earn that and go make a good living,” she said.
