The week of November, 4^th, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) held its annual research conference in Washington, DC.  APPAM is a professional association of graduate schools of public policy and management, which brings top policy researchers, policymakers, and practitioners together to share information about emerging issues in policy and practice. The Ray Marshall Center’s work speaks directly to the issues that are central to APPAM’s mission. This year, Dr. Christopher King, Director at the Ray Marshall Center and LBJ faculty member, participated as a discussant in a Saturday panel titled, “Financial Incentives for Economic Development.” Also traveling with Dr. King were Center Associate Director Dr. Heath Prince, Research Scientist Dr. Daniel Schroeder, and Research Associates Dan O’Shea and Ashweeta Patnaik.

Dr. Prince was a presenter on the panel titled, “Child Poverty Around the World: Measurement, Interventions, and Policies.” The panel, which included researchers from UNICEF and Fordham University, served as a platform for Prince to present his research on macro-level drivers of multidimensional poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Schroeder, together with research partners from four other states in the ADARE group, met with officials from the USDA Employment Research Service (ERS) to discuss plans for the final year of the SNAP-UI project, including ensuring standards for uniform research products from each state, and potential topics to add to common deliverables.

From research in Africa to two-generation strategies across the USA, the Center’s mission is grounded in the belief that public service to those in need will improve society at large. The Center values participating in APPAM for these reasons, as both institutions seek to promote public policy that will benefit those who can most benefit from it. Speaking about APPAM, King notes, “APPAM’s annual conference is a gathering of savvy policymakers, practitioners, funders, and researchers. We make a point of being part of it every year without fail. Not only have we learned powerful lessons from ongoing research being conducted by the best in their field, we have often established collaborations and relationships and developed new research initiatives with real impacts on policy and practice.”

An article out this week in the Austin American-Statesman titled, “Little Progress In Effort to get more Austin-Area students to College” cites data from the Student Futures Project. The article attempts to shed light on why college enrollment rates in Central Texas have been stagnant for the last 6 years. Greg Cumpton, Research Associate at the Ray Marshall Center and Co-Principal Investigator of the Student Futures Project is quoted in the article and explains that there has been a surge in the number and share of lower-income students who are typically not as inclined to go to college.

The Student Futures Project is a research partnership of the Ray Marshall Center and currently 12 Central Texas independent school districts (ISDs). The project is documenting and analyzing the progress of Central Texas high school students as they move onto colleges and careers. It relies on a combination of student surveys and linked administrative records to improve feedback and policy and program alignment for Central Texas ISDs in preparing students for the demands of adulthood and for success in the workplace.

Despite stagnant enrollments rates, Cumpton explains that there are reasons for optimism; the share of low-income high school graduates transitioning to college increased by 7% points between 2008 and 2011. The Austin Chamber of Commerce has worked with local school districts and the Ray Marshall Center to incorporate programs such as the Summer Melt program into the toolbox that educators and administrators have to help students enroll and successfully attend college. Thus far, Central Texas has managed to avoid the drop in enrollment rates that other parts of Texas are currently experiencing.

This Opportunity Austin Education Animation speaks to the issues facing education reform in Central Texas, specifically issues concerning college enrollment and assistance.  The Ray Marshall Center plays an important role in this analysis and is mentioned in the video.

The week of October 13th Heath Prince, Greg Cumpton and Amna Khan traveled to four community colleges in North Dakota to discuss data collection context and procedures for Project (Training for Regional Energy in North Dakota) TREND.  This project funds development of structured training and supports at colleges for students interested in obtaining skills and knowledge related to high-demand and high-wage jobs.  North Dakota is in the midst of a booming economy due to vast oil reserves in the Bakken formation with some areas experiencing unemployment rates as low as 1%; the high demand jobs generally service the local oil industry and include oil drill workers and managers, oil processing workers and truck drivers.  The demand for these jobs is so high that many companies currently import workers from outside the state; with very high costs for housing and limited land available for new construction, some of these imported workers live in ‘man-camps,’ minimally-constructed and grouped homes.

Last week the Austin American-Statesman released a detailed article about the challenges that Central Texas Latino students face as they apply for and go to higher education institutions. A community that values education and sees graduating college as the ticket to the American Dream, Latinos are looking for solutions to cultural and economic barriers impeding them from reaching their goal. Cited in the article, Dr. Chris King, Director of the Ray Marshall Center, explains that the positive spillover resulting from small groups of Latinos graduating college could ameliorate the situation by serving as an example for friends and family. Furthermore, the Student Futures Project, a Ray Marshall Center project that surveys high school seniors from several Central Texas school districts, is cited as one of the principal sources of data that supports the notion that economic pressures are the most important factor for why Latino students struggle to go to college. To read more about Latino access to Higher-Ed in Central Texas, click here.

On October 4^th, Ray Marshall Center Director Chris King joined Monica Barczak, Director of the Innovation Lab at the Community Action Program (CAP) of Tulsa, in presenting a program update for CareerAdvance® to the Governor’s Council for Workforce and Economic Development in Oklahoma City. CareerAdvance® is an innovative career pathway program, which Center researchers helped design in 2008-2009, that helps train the parents of Head Start and Early Head Start children for healthcare careers that will provide them with the opportunity to lift their families out of poverty. CAP Tulsa administers this program that is now funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Professions Opportunity Grant program.

King and Barczak presented the most recent achievements of the program, highlighting how much the program has grown since its inception in 2009. In cohorts 1 through 7, 261 people completed applications, of which 145 started the first activity. In cohort 8 alone, 74 people completed applications and 37 began the first activity. Early indications suggest that the model produces success, although rigorous evaluation results are still in the making as part of the evaluation being directed by Dr. King and Dr. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale of Northwestern University. The Ray Marshall Center has produced several reports evaluating the implementation of the program, and educators and policymakers across the country are increasingly intrigued. Council Chair Steve Hendrickson pointed out that such programs are great examples of what Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin plans to foster in her new role as incoming Chair of the National Governors Association.

The Student Futures Project received mention in the CAN Newsletter this month. The Community Advancement Network (CAN) is a partnership of organizations that works to help improve social, education, and health conditions in the Austin community. The title of the article about the Student Futures Project is “Increase in Low-Income Students Head to College.”

This summer marked the departure of several Center staff.

Dr. Anjali Gupta recently moved to India to continue working on issues related to education as a staffer for the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) . Shortly thereafter, Laura Stelling, Graduate Research Assistant and student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs graduated and was offered a position at theAustin Independent School District. She has taken a position as Evaluation Analyst with the Department of Research and Evaluation. Gary Davis, the Bryna and Henry David Fellow and class president at the LBJ School of Public Affairs graduated and accepted a position atSEDL, a non-profit education research, development, and dissemination organization based in Austin.  He is a program specialist in their Texas Comprehensive Center, focusing on providing support and technical assistance to the Texas Education Agency to help implement, scale up and sustain its college and career readiness initiatives.

While some were leaving the RMC, others were joining us. First, Ashweeta Patnaik joined RMC as a Social Science Research Associate. She most recently hails from the University of Texas A&M in College Station, where she worked as a research scientist. Amna Kahn also rejoined the Center as a Social Science Research Associate, returning to RMC after time working in Pakistan.  Before the semester began, Amanda Briggs was hired as a Graduate Research Assistant from the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She will be working on the Dual Generation Strategy Initiative Project, amongst others. She is in her second year at LBJ.

The Texas Education Research Center (ERC)is a research center and data clearinghouse created by the Texas legislature in 2006. The RMC was initially a partner with the ERC, housed at the University of Texas at Dallas, but more recently has evolved into a new partnership based at the University of Texas at Austin. The UT-Austin ERC has moved to the RMC. Dr. Celeste Alexander serves as managing Director of the ERC. Its Co-Principal Investigators are Dr. Pedro Reyes, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UT System and LBJ School faculty member, and RMC Director, Dr. Chris King.

The nonpartisan ERC is tasked with hosting information from state agencies and providing access to data for scientific inquiry and policy making purposes. It contains a broad range of linked, student- and school-level data including all public education information from P-12 schools from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), information from both public and private higher education institutions through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), and training program, child care and employment data from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The integrated nature of this database allows researchers to follow the trajectory Texas students take from elementary school through postsecondary institutions and into their careers.

Additionally, data from several national datasets are also hosted by the ERC including those from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The ERC warehouse today holds one of the largest and most complete Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems in the country. Currently, in addition to RMC researchers, LBJ School Assistant Professor Jane Lincove and Economics Professor Sandra Black and several of their doctoral students are conducting research using ERC data as part of RMC’s ongoing Texas Workforce Data Quality Initiative. In the near future, other researchers from around the country will be able to apply for access to these data for approved research projects.

Carinne Deeds,  a graduate student at LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin, has received the Bryna and Henry David Fellowship from the Ray Marshall Center and joins the Center as a graduate research assistant working on the Central Texas Student Futures Project. Deeds is the sixth recipient of the fellowship.

The Ray Marshall Center selects the David Fellow every two to three years to work half-time on education and workforce-related research. Funding for the fellowship is generously supported by the endowment of Bryna and Henry David. Henry David taught at the LBJ School in the 1970s, both he and his wife Bryna were nationally recognized researchers in career-related education.

Deeds is seeking a masters degree in Public Affairs at the LBJ School, with a focus in Education and Social Policy. She expects to complete her degree in spring of 2015.

Prior to coming to the LBJ School and the Ray Marshall Center, Carinne worked as Education Program Coordinator at the Boys and Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe, in Kings Beach, California on Lake Tahoe. In Tahoe she also worked as Outreach Coordinator for the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science.  Previously, Carinne taught English to Thai kindergarteners and then high schoolers in Bangkok, Thailand, and the surrounding areas.  She also taught English to a group of Turkish students who could not speak Thai or English at the time.

Carinne received her Bachelors Degree in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.