The February 2013 e-newsletter for the Ray Marshall Center was released today. Click on this link to view the newsletter online or download the PDF version here. Newsletters are available approximately every other month. To receive future newsletters via email, please click on the newsletter sign-up page.

The Ray Marshall Center has been awarded a contract to conduct a detailed process analysis of the Resident Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) Program administered by the Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA).  The ROSS Program supports Priority One programs that connect public housing residents with workforce development and supportive services available through community-based partnerships.  The evaluation will include a detailed examination of client flow, services, partnerships, and outcomes, as well as forms and procedures for client intake, initial assessment, case management, and program performance measurement.  The ROSS Services Delivery Assessment Report will be completed June, 2013.  Heath Prince and Dan O’Shea are serving as co-principal investigators for the project.

“Low wages, hazardous work, and payroll fraud inflict high costs on Texas residents, taxpayers, and responsible employers. Companies that do not pay a living wage are being subsidized by workers, their families, and the public. The cost of injuries, illness and death of uninsured workers are borne by their families, medical providers, and employers who do provide health insurance. In the absence of administrative remedies and effective employee protections, workers are forced to seek relief through litigation, which can be uncertain, time consuming, and expensive,” states Ray Marshall in his introductory comments for Build a Better Texas: Construction Working Conditions in the Lone Star State.  Center researchers Bob Glover and Dan O’Shea served on the Academic Advisory Committee for this report released by the Workers Defense Project during a press conference at the Texas State Capital on January 29, 2013.

The complete document can be accessed at here.

 

Dr. Ray Marshall, former Secretary of Labor and the Center’s founder, returned to the Public Affairs Forum to speak about an issue that has been central to his decades long career in public policy – immigration reform.

The title of Dr. Marshall’s address was, Sensible Immigration Reform: Lessons from Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Addressing the need for immigration reform in America head-on, Dr. Marshall took an in-depth look at what other ‘immigrant countries’ have done to incorporate laborers from abroad, primarily focusing on how the United States could benefit from their experience. As the United States struggles with the negative impact of having millions of undocumented workers that labor without the benefit of workers’ rights and who often earn well below a living wage, it is clear that a new policy must be formulated to address this issue.

The former Secretary’s research and unequivocal recommendations are helping to guide federal immigration policy in the months to come, as this debate takes center stage in Washington, DC.

Dan O’Shea represented the Ray Marshall Center, Project GROW’s evaluator, at a two-day project launch event on January 24th and 25th in McAllen. The event included participatory workshops and presentations from the RMC, technical assistance providers, administrators, planners, and program service delivery staff. Project GROW partners discussed ongoing work on programmatic and data collection refinements, as well as processes related to client flow, education and training services, and financial and program reporting requirements. Project GROW intends to begin enrolling clients by mid-March of this year. RMC research staff will begin field work in the BWA region in April.

Growing Regional Opportunity for the Workforce: Expanding the Border for Lower Skilled Adults (GROW) is a Department of Labor funded project that aims to transform the workforce development system in a five-WIB region along the Texas-Mexico border. The Border Workforce Alliance (BWA) – a consortium comprised of the Cameron, Lower Rio, Middle Rio, South Texas and Upper Rio Workforce Investment Boards – is partnering with regional employers, one-stop operators, community colleges, training providers, and community-based organizations, as well as with national workforce intermediary Jobs for the Future, to align and strengthen workforce system components in order to accelerate credential attainment and career entry by lower-skilled adults, as well as to meet the skilled workforce needs of key industry sector employers.

Dr. Christopher King, Director at the Ray Marshall Center, spoke to Alfreda Norman with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas on the Federal Reserve’s Economic Development Podcast Series in December. The topic of discussion for the podcast was, “Why Connecting Economic and Workforce Development Matters.”

In light of recent shifts in our economy towards a service and knowledge economy, and further expounding upon the presentation he gave to the Future of Workforce Development Conference in Kansas City, Dr. King explains that economic development and workforce development paradigms have begun to merge in the last decade.  In a less hierarchical marketplace, employers have less time to develop the long term skills that are needed of their employees. Local workforce boards and community and technical colleges are increasingly relied upon to provide much needed training for workers who can no longer depend on the traditional “career ladder,” as companies have moved away from long-term worker training models.

Along with local colleges, non-profit organizations are playing an important role in workforce training.  For example, Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas, has developed a strategy to provide long-term occupational training for the local health industry. By following up with participants years after they have completed the program, The Ray Marshall Center has observed what long term impacts this program has on workers.  Employment and wage data show that participants in the program have had markedly more success than their counterparts in the health labor market.  

Finally, Dr. King explains that communication between civic organizations will play an important role in local economic development.  Limited local funds will demand that these organizations work more efficiently in the future.

Tara Carter Smith and other researchers from the Ray Marshall Center traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the beginning of December to conduct focus groups with participants of the CareerAdvance© program. CareerAdvance© is a dual generation program that provides parents of children in Tulsa’s Head Start programs with education, vocational training, and peer support to complete certifications in the healthcare sector. One of these focus groups targeted participants who had graduated from the program. The initial results were positive, indicating that many moved on to jobs in the health field or to further their education.

 

Center Director Chris King and Associate Director Heath Prince attended the TG Grantee Convening – 2012 Class in San Antonio on November 5 and 6, 2012. TG currently helps to fund the Center’s Central Texas Student Futures Project and has funded other Center research projects over the past several years.

The conference, for TG grant recipients during the 2012-13 program year, provided recipients a forum to discuss the nature of their TG-funded projects with each other. Conferees also discussed how their programs  and  research projects mesh with TG’s strategic vision.

Several staff members from the Ray Marshall Center had roles on the 2012 fall research conference program of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, held in Baltimore from November 8-10.

Chris King, RMC director, spoke at the roundtable session “Reimagining America’s Skills Investments,” along with Carl Van Horn of Rutgers University and Larry A. Good of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, session chair. Roundtable members discussed the global economic and policy trends that are the context for rethinking U.S. approaches to development of skills and supports for adult learners/workers, summarized what of relevance can be learned from research to inform policy choices, and then framed several policy options that would be viable within this context and capable of producing effective results.

Additionally, Dr. King is the co-author of two papers accepted by the conference. New Models of Parent-Child Engagement In Early Childhood Education: Promoting Low-Income Parents’ Education and Careers (with Teresa Eckrich Sommer of Northwestern University; Robert W. Glover, retired research scientist at RMC; and Hirokazu Yoshikawa of Harvard University) was presented at the panel, “21st Century Model for Parent Engagement: Educating Low-Income Parents and Children Simultaneously.”

The Experience of States with Recovery Act Workforce Funds (with Burt Barnow of George Washington University; Randall Eberts of the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research; Joyce Kaiser of the Capital Research Corporation; Tara Smith, RMC research associate; John Trutko of the Capital Research Corporation; and Stephen Wandner of The Urban Institute) was presented at the panel, “Promoting Effective, Efficient and Accountable Government: Lessons From the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” The paper reports on findings from a  two-year, 20-state study of Recovery Act approaches, highlighting policy and programmatic changes as well as key achievements and challenges.

Deanna Schexnayder, assistant dean for finance and administration of the LBJ School of Public Affairs and RMC senior research scientist, moderated a roundtable discussion, “Central Texas Student Futures Project: Lessons From a Practitioner-Researcher Partnership.” The speakers were Dr. King, Drew Scheberle of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Kristin Boyer of TG and Camille Clay of Leander (TX) Independent School District. Attendees learned about the overall program design of the project, how school districts have applied lessons learned from the data to enhance student access to higher education, and how private funders have supported the project. The session was organized by Greg Cumpton, RMC social science research associate.

Ms. Schexnayder also spoke at the session, “State Advisory Councils On Early Childhood Education and Care: The Vision and the Reality,” along with Linda K. Smith of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Bobbie Weber of Oregon State University and Lee Kreader of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University. Albert Wat of the National Governors Association moderated the session. Discussion topics included involvement of state legislatures, goals adopted, types of activities undertaken, and involvement of various stakeholders. Attendees explore the advantages and disadvantages of different types of governance structures and the extent to which state council efforts are sustainable over time.

Heath Prince, RMC associate director, is co-author of a paper accepted by the conference, Increasing College Attainment in the United States: Variations in Returns to States and Their Residents (with Matt Crellin, research associate, and Patrick Kelly, senior associate at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems). Dr. Kelly presented the paper at the panel, “Measuring Returns on Investments in Human Capital: A Panel Discussion on Recent Research.”

Ms. Smith presented at the same panel and discussed the RMC report, Exploratory Return on Investment Analysis of Local Workforce Investments, co-authored with Dr. King. The research examines ROI from investments in Capital IDEA, a local workforce intermediary program that sponsors individuals in long-term training for high-wage, high-demand occupations primarily in healthcare.

Mr. Cumpton gave a poster presentation related to the Central Texas Student Futures Project.

The November 2012 e-newsletter for the Ray Marshall Center was released today. Click on this link to view the newsletter online or download the PDF version here. Newsletters are available approximately every other month. To receive future newsletters via email, please click on the newsletter sign-up page.