[Excerpts]
Project QUEST has had the ongoing political and community backing of COPS/Metro Alliance... that helped launch the program in 1992 and worked to ensure that Project QUEST has ongoing financial support. Project QUEST’s strategies can and have been replicated in other communities. The key is considerable, reliable financial support that can be used flexibly to meet community members’ needs. A few key results are as follows:
- Project QUEST participants earned $54,000 more than the control group during the 14-year follow-up period.
- Project QUEST and the community colleges invested an average of $16,244 (2022 dollars) in each participant over the fourteen years following study enrollment, resulting in a 234 percent return on investment. Moreover, program graduates moved out of poverty and into the middle class, earning close to $60,000, on average, in the final year of the study.
- Participants ages 35 and older at the time of enrollment experienced the greatest benefit from Project QUEST, earning a remarkable $138,577 more, on average, than their counterparts in the control group over the fourteen years.
Fourteen Year Gains: Project QUEST's Remarkable Impact, Economic Mobility [pdf]
[Excerpt]
“If the city paid for it, I would hope the answer is yes,” [Sonia] Rodriguez said after Thursday’s council meeting. “Because that’s the point — that people get the skills, get the certificates, get what they need to be able to actually reach a level of economic stability where they can grow on the career ladder. We want to empower the participants to have those choices.”
COPS/Metro rallied voters to approve the program — and has been one of its most vocal critics.
“There’s no problem with moving and adjusting. We just want to make sure that there’s transparency, of course, and then accountability,” said Rena Oden, another COPS/Metro leader.
San Antonio City Council OKs Subsidies for Empyers to Train Their Workers, San Antonio Express News [pdf]
Garcia: By Frustrating Trial and Error, Ready to Work is Changing Lives, San Antonio Express News [pdf]
Posted
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Updates
· November 20, 2023 12:51 PM
[Photo Credit: Ronald Cortes, San Antonio Express News]
[Excerpt]
"...not enough San Antonians are landing jobs through the city sales-tax funded program, say leaders with the interfaith grassroots advocacy group. The city has failed to meet its goal that 80% of Ready to Work participants will find employment paying at least $15 an hour within six months of finishing their training.
“That’s unacceptable,” said Sister Jane Ann Slater, a COPS/Metro leader. “If they would use the process we know works, they can say, ‘We have these jobs on the table,’ and they would be hired immediately.”
Read more
Posted
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Updates
· April 13, 2021 6:17 AM
Back in 1992, she was an organizer for COPS/Metro Alliance when the powerful community organization designed and persuaded the City to financially back Project Quest, which early on and to this day has been recognized as one of the most successful job training programs in the country. In 2011, when Project Quest was plagued with controversy from failings due not to corruption but to incompetence, Sister Pearl was brought in to turn it around. She did and ran the organization for six years.
Now the City of San Antonio is embarking on SA: Ready to Work, a program approved by the voters last November that will spend $154 million over five or six years in an effort to train the city’s working poor for good-paying jobs that the city is now generating.
[Photo Credit: Nick Wagner/San Antonio Report]
Solid Advice For Erik Walsh: Talk To The Nun, San Antonio Report [pdf]
Posted
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Updates
· September 09, 2020 7:19 PM
[Excerpt]
About five years ago, COPS/Metro sought and won “living wage” minimum pay for City workers, resulting in raises for about 20 percent of the civilian workforce. They won similar measures from Bexar County, and some school districts followed suit.
Now two measures on the Nov. 3 ballot offer San Antonians the opportunity to again help lower-rung workers. Both involve a one-eighth-cent sales tax that for 20 years has provided funding to buy development rights to protect sensitive lands over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.
The first ballot measure would transfer those funds to provide about $154 million over the next four years for a job training program projected to boost the incomes of up to 40,000 workers. That’s an aggressive goal, but what gives it credibility is that its approach is based on Project Quest, a jobs training program designed by COPS/Metro 28 years ago.
Interestingly, it was COPS/Metro and their sister organizations around the state that persuaded the Legislature back in 2001 to authorize local governments to spend money on job training and early childhood education. That same law, the Texas Better Jobs Act, permitted San Antonio voters to approve Pre-K 4 SA in November 2012. The highly successful preschool program is up for renewal on the ballot.
[Photo Credit: Scott Ball, San Antonio Report]
Election Day Ballot Will Let You Celebrate Labor Day on November 3rd, San Antonio Report [pdf]
Posted
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Updates
· August 14, 2020 8:18 AM
[Excerpt]
Voters will be asked to approve a 1/8-cent sales tax to fund job training and college degrees for San Antonians who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The money also would help participants pay rent and other living expenses while they complete those programs.
The sales tax revenue would be dedicated to those purposes for four years....
“Today, San Antonians need this investment more than ever,” Virginia Mata, a leader of the grassroots coalition COPS/Metro told council members Thursday. “It is not only the right thing to do but also the right investment. The seeds that you plant today will have a lasting effect and will help San Antonians rise from the shadows to the light.”
[Photo Credit: Billy Calzada, San Antonio Express-News]
'We Need Action Now': Sales Tax Proposal for San Antonio Economic Recovery Now in Voters' Hands, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]
With Workforce Measure on Ballot, Project Quest Ready to Help Mend Economic Wounds, Rivard Report [pdf]
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Updates
· August 12, 2020 3:50 PM
[Excerpt]
Since the onset of the pandemic, COPS/Metro with our allies, Project QUEST and the Alamo Colleges, have led the way to ensure San Antonians whose lives have been shattered by the economic free fall can re-enter the workforce equipped with new skills and good salaries. This month, the workforce development program supported by CARES and the city of San Antonio began accepting applicants whose jobs went on hiatus or completely disappeared. These applicants are supported with critical wraparound services that include a stipend, child care, transportation, tutoring and counseling, like the highly successful services provided by Project QUEST, which is recognized nationally for its high graduation and job placement rates. The Alamo Colleges will play a vital role in this program, using Project QUEST’s model along with partnerships that will strengthen and expand its capacity to serve displaced workers.
To be successful, the new Education and Workforce Program will need to adhere to a set of standards like the CARES recovery program, whose primary focus is meeting the needs of the participants. Addressing those needs must be the focal point of decision-making, not business as usual. This means providing quality wraparound services, including a 1-to-100 ratio of counselors to participants, ensuring job placement upon program completion and connecting graduates with jobs that pay a living wage with benefits. And the overall policy direction and management of the program must reside within city government, along with participants, educators and community members who can offer insight into program implementation.
Approximately 160,000 workers have been displaced due to the pandemic. The lion’s share of the funding should be directed toward them. While the majority of tax dollars will be dedicated to workforce development, funds could also go to participants with some college credits who want to complete their degrees. If the higher education institutions adequately address their needs, it is possible a fair number of college graduates could result from a small investment into this pathway. However, using public dollars to offer the same programs and services that previously failed these same students will not do. This is not a scholarship program; it is a jobs program.
[Photo Credit: Billy Calzada/San Antonio Express-News]
Improving Economy of City, Lives Of its Residents in Grasp, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]
Posted
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Updates
· May 11, 2020 5:13 PM
[Excerpt]
COPS/Metro, a network of grassroots community and religious organizations, wants $200 million of the city’s and county’s stimulus funds to underwrite what it describes as a GI Bill for the working poor. After beefing up the city fund for emergency housing assistance, COPS/Metro is calling for putting jobless workers through school at Alamo Colleges with a stipend.
“It would be a down-payment for the long term,” said Steve Mendoza, a COPS/Metro leader and co-author of an Express-News guest column outlining the proposal. “Tourism is not going to come back right away. And if we continue to focus on tourism, we’re going to get the same” dependence on low-wage jobs.
He added: “When there’s a crisis, there’s an opportunity.”
[Photo By William Luther, San Antonio Express-News]
Jefferson: $270 Milllion In Stimulus Aid Won't Plug Holes In San Antonio Budget, San Antonio Express News [pdf]
Commissioners Deciding How to Use $79 Million in Federal Coronavirus Relief, Rivard Report
