In 2018, Mike Feinberg, a former fifth-grade teacher who has since worked to transform K-12 school systems’ structure, co-launched the nonprofit Texas School Venture Fund to increase academic options in underserved communities.
Feinberg had previously co-founded a college prep-focused middle school in Houston in 1995, which led to the creation of dozens of high-performing public schools throughout the U.S. with a model that involves a personalized, safe learning environment and support to help students earn a college degree after high school.
Today, the Texas School Venture Fund supports a variety of learning programs that cater to both children and adults.
The fund has helped fuel initiatives such as Neighborhood Schools, Inc. — which established two Houston-area tuition-free pre-K-to-eighth-grade charter schools, the Westchase Neighborhood School and Eastex-Jensen Neighborhood School — and the trades-based WorkTexas training program.
WorkTexas provides courses — often at no cost, thanks to grants and scholarships — to help high school-age students and adults obtain plumbing, HVAC maintenance, commercial truck driving, warehouse management and other jobs.
The hands-on training sessions, which generally last about 11 weeks, were developed using input from local employers to ensure students learn skills that align with their current needs, according to Yazmin Guerra, Harris County vice president of workforce development and the director of workforce development for WorkTexas.
“If the employer is telling us they have a need and will hire a set number of students, we always ask, ‘If we could wave a magic wand, how many people could you hire tomorrow?’” Guerra says. “Then we work together to establish a curriculum in a program that works for them.”
Mike Feinberg on Collective Career Assistance
WorkTexas’ trade-oriented instruction is offered in space provided by a large furniture store and through the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department’s educational resource, The Opportunity Center — where a separate Texas School Venture Fund-backed program, Project Remix Ventures, works to address the educational and employment-related needs of young people who’ve been involved in the justice system.
“You’re not going to do well in your job if you’re homeless or hungry, or your car stops working,” Mike Feinberg says. “We need all those different supports to exist.”
Through Project Remix Ventures, Opportunity Center students can work as contract employees or interns after they have completed the integrated GED-vocational program, if they’d benefit from additional experience — earning money by creating the products they made during training, which are sold through e-commerce microbusinesses such as a T-shirt print screening shop.The resulting revenue is used to support Project Remix Ventures.
Without it, a number of students may not be able to afford to strengthen their skills after completing the GED and trade instruction-based portion of the program before they enter the workforce, according to Opportunity Center Director and WorkTexas Co-Founder Vanessa Ramirez.
“[Staying in the program] doesn’t pay the bills; it doesn’t bring food to the table,” Ramirez says. “Project Remix Ventures allows us to continue to provide guardrails and sustain those relationships — so once they’re ready to make more money than we can pay them, they’re equipped with the life skills to make that transition.”
