The November 7 issue of the Employment and Training Reporter features a piece by Cecilio Morales reviewing the recently released report by the John H. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development titled “Identifying Gaps and Setting Priorities for Employment and Training Research,” coauthored by Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center, Chris King, director of the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas at Austin, and Tara Smith, research associate at the Marshall Center. The report authors review workforce programs funded by federal agencies, related research and evaluation projects, and offer recommendations for priority research topics over the next five years.

The Employment and Training Reporter (ETR) has been providing coverage of employment programs, policies, and issues since 1969. ETR covers the whole range of U.S. federal, state and local programs, including the Workforce Investment Act, community and technical career colleges, economic development, Older Americans Act, Perkins vocational education, TANF and welfare reform, as well as vocational rehabilitation and employment for the disabled. Stories include notification on legislation and regulations, coverage of best practices and emerging policies, summaries of leading research findings, and key statistical and fiscal data.

• To view the piece in the Employment and Training Reporter, click here.

• To view a copy of the full report, click on the link: Identifying Gaps and Setting Priorities for Employment and Training Research

 

On Oct. 31, the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, issued a press release discussing a new national study titled Identifying Gaps and Setting Priorities for Employmentand Training Research. The study, co-authored by Heldrich Center director Dr. Carl Van Horn and Dr. Chris King and Tara Smith from the Ray Marshall Center, recommends priorities for workforce development research that will contribute to better policies and programs that prepare the nation’s workforce and help the unemployed return to work. A copy of the press release is shown below and is also available for download at this link.

 

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October 31, 2011
For Immediate Release

Toward a New Agenda for Employment & Training Research
Workforce Experts Seek More Timely Research, More Effective Dissemination of Promising Practices

A new national study entitled Identifying Gaps and Setting Priorities for Employment and Training Research has been released by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. The 125-page report, prepared with support from a grant by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA), recommends priorities for workforce development research that will contribute to better policies and programs that prepare the nation’s workforce and help the unemployed return to work.

The report was co-authored by Carl Van Horn, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Heldrich Center and by Christopher King, Director, and Tara Smith, Research Associate at the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Maria Heidkamp of the Heldrich Center also contributed research for the report.

The highest priority research topic areas include:

Understanding Changing Labor Markets. ETA should support more research on understanding the changing dynamics of labor markets and the program and service needs that result from them, rather than simply conducting more program-specific studies.

Identifying Effective Strategies. ETA needs to fund more research topics geared to the needs of the overall workforce system, such as the economic impact of Unemployment Insurance; the effectiveness of various training options; the value of credentials, training certifications, and apprenticeships in the labor market; strategies for teaching adult education through contextualized learning; and the value of workforce sectoral strategies.

Improving Workforce System Infrastructure. ETA should conduct research into the effectiveness of waivers in allowing states and local areas the flexibility to manage their workforce systems based on local circumstances, and new ways to disseminate promising practices.

Addressing the Needs of Special Populations, such as long-term unemployed workers, dislocated workers, youth and older workers, low-wage workers, exoffenders, English-language learners, persons with disabilities, and veterans. More research is needed into special strategies for effectively serving low-skill, disconnected men, Native Americans, Hispanics, and other immigrant populations.

Building Research Infrastructure and Support. Overall, ETA should improve access, use, and confidentiality of administrative records for research and evaluation, and create and distribute more public-use datasets for analysis. There is also a need to better understand the relationship between education and workforce systems, and the outcomes and impacts associated with coordination between these systems, particularly for low-skill, low-wage populations and dislocated workers.“

A number of the stakeholders and panelists said that the quality of ETA’s research in general has improved, but that more rigorous evaluation research is needed to enable, as one panelist put it, ‘more evidence-based and less belief-based policymaking,’” remarked co-author Carl Van Horn. “Workforce development research needs to focus more on assessing strategies that might improve wages and that address fundamental labor market challenges and less on specific programs.”

Among the report’s other findings:

• Access to and dissemination of ETA-funded research has increased in the past few years, but is still in need of further improvement. ETA should pool resources and seek closer collaboration between state and federal agencies, and, where feasible, with private foundations.<
• Congress and the Executive Branch should establish a Workforce Development Institute at USDOL/ETA to set research priorities, administer funding and evaluation initiatives, and disseminate results.
• The dissemination and use of federal research would be improved by reestablishing the interdisciplinary regional network of academic research,training, and technical assistance centers that existed in the 1970s and 1980s.

“There was broad consensus among the experts we consulted about the great need for larger, more strategic investments in workforce development research by USDOL/ETA, the federal agencies, and private foundations,” observed co-author Chris King. “There was also considerable agreement on the broad research topics that should receive top priority in the next five years.”

The new report’s conclusions and recommendations were developed through:

• A survey of 665 stakeholders representing state and local workforce agencies, professional and labor associations, and community organizations;
• Interviews and meetings with a 20-member National Expert Advisory Panel;
• Interviews with USDOL senior staff in Washington, D.C., as well as ETA’s national and regional offices; and
• An extensive literature review of employment and training-related research conducted (since 2005) with the support of the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy; Social Security Administration; National Science Foundation and other federal agencies; several state and local governments; as well as efforts supported recently by major foundations, including the Annie E.Casey Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

The research published during this timeframe included demonstrations and analyses for specific populations of workers (e.g., youth, low-wage, immigrants, ex-offenders, unemployed individuals, older), as well as evaluations of services, training, and support strategies within the workforce development system.

“Given the major challenges facing the U.S. economy and workforce,” Dr. Van Horn concluded, “it is imperative that federal, state, and local workforce policymakers and practitioners have access to rigorous, timely, and credible research about the programs and strategies that are most effective in helping American job seekers obtain employment and advance their careers.”

The Employment and Training Administration has just released a draft of its next Five-Year Research and Evaluation Strategic Plan, which is required under the Workforce Investment Act. (See: Federal Register Volume 76, # 209, Friday, October 28, 2011, http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister//HtmlDisplay.aspx?DocId=25434&AgencyId=15&DocumentType=3 ). According to the Notice, the Heldrich Center’s report was “acritical source for the Research Plan, and information from the paper was adopted ascore parts” of several chapters and appendices.

ETA also commented on the “extensive effort” that was made by the Heldrich Center“ to engage both internal and external stakeholders in the process of identifying research gaps and high priority topics for the public workforce system.”

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The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development is based at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.  It is one of the nation’s leading university-based research and policy centers dedicated to raising the effectiveness of the American workplace through improved workforce education, placement, and training.  The Center identifies innovative workforce practices and practical policy changes that can help Americans receive the education and training they need to be productive and prosperous in a global knowledge economy. Learn more at http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu

The Ray Marshall Center is based at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.  It is a university-based research center dedicated to strengthening education, workforce, and social policies and programs that affect current and future generations of American workers.  The Center seeks to translate its research into effective policies and programs through Program Evaluation; Survey Research; Labor Market Analysis; Program Design and Development; and Training and Technical assistance. For more information, visit https://sites.utexas.edu/raymarshallcenter.

Ray Marshall Center researchers Drs. Chris King, Bob Glover, and Daniel Schroeder will participate in the 2011 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Fall Research Conference taking place in Washington D.C, Nov. 3 – 5. On Nov. 3, Dr. King will serve as the panel discussant alongside Sarah Williams from the U.S. Department of Labor at the noon-time panel titled “Use of Market Mechanisms for Employment and Training Services” featuring research from several experts in the field.

In the Nov. 4 panel “Improving Evidence on Workforce Development Program Performance for Policymakers”, two papers which Dr. King co-authored will be presented by colleagues. The first paper titled “How Effective Are Workforce Development Programs? Implications for U.S. Workforce Policies” co-written with presenter Dr. Carolyn Heinrich from the University of Texas’ Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs looks at programs that encompass workforce development, examines the evidence and conventional wisdom on the effectiveness of workforce development programs, provide arguments that challenge the conventional wisdom and the approaches that have been applied in measuring the effectiveness of workforce development interventions. King and Heinrich conclude by summarizing the arguments and evidence in support of an alternative view that counters the conventional wisdom and finds that workforce development works. The paper is a revised version of the research they presented at the Ray Marshall Center’s 40th Anniversary Symposium last October.

The second paper titled “Evidence on the Implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Workforce Development and Unemployment Insurance Provisions,” co-authored by Dr. Rich Hobbie from the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, Dr. Burt S. Barnow from GeorgeWashington University, and several other researchers, measures progress and challenges in implementing the workforce and Unemployment Insurance (UI) provisions of the Recovery Act, highlights new and promising practices, and provides guidance to the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), states, and local workforce investment areas.  

Dr. Daniel Schroeder’s presentation is scheduled for the Nov. 4  panel titled Social Safety Net Transitions to Employment: Policy Analysis of Great Recessions. His presentation will review “Interactions between SNAP and UI before and during the Great Recession”. In his research, Dr. Schroeder analyzes the interactions between Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and UI benefits programs in the state of Texas from 2006 through 2010, and explores the extent to which the dynamics of the two programs changed in response to the great recession.

On Nov. 5, Dr. King will present a paper co-authored with Ray Marshall Center research colleagues Dr. Bob Glover and Tara C. Smith titled “Investing in Children and Parents: Fostering Dual-Generation Strategies in the United States” at the 10:15 AM panel session discussing The Prospects and Promise of Two-Generation Anti-Poverty Programs. The panel also features Drs. Hiro Yoshikawa (Harvard), Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Teresa Sommer (Northwestern), who are partnering with the Ray Marshall Center on its dual-generation strategy work in Tulsa.

This week Ascend, the Family Economic Security Program at the Aspen Institute posted the following article on  their website recounting the discussions and presentations made by participants at the “Two-Generation Strategies in Education” roundtable event, co-convened by the Ray Marshall Center, Ascend and the Foundation for Child Development.

 

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Two Generation Strategies in Education: A Roundtable October 14, 2011

 

On October 14th, Ascend hosted the second in its roundtable series on Two-Generation Strategies, “Two-Generation Strategies in Education,” which followed the program’s launch in March 2011. Developed in partnership with the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) and the Ray Marshall Center for Human Resources (RMC) at The L.B.J. School of Public Affairs (University of Texas, Austin), the roundtable was an opportunity for policy experts, researchers, and program leaders from around the country to engage in an in-depth dialogue on two-generation strategies as they apply to education (in particular, early childhood education and postsecondary education). Specifically, those gathered at the table – representing programs, institutions, and foundations from Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas – discussed opportunities and challenges for integrating two-generation education strategies across policies and systems, as well as for lifting up program models and promoting a research agenda around this emerging concept. With thought leaders from both the early childhood and postsecondary spheres sitting alongside researchers and on-the-ground innovators, the roundtable offered a space for vigorous debate, idea exchange, and collaboration across sectors and areas of expertise.

With many participants coming to The Aspen Institute from beyond Washington, Ascend, in partnership with FCD and RMC, hosted a private dinner on October 13th featuring a panel discussion on philanthropy moderated by NPR’s Michel Martin. “The View from Philanthropy: Why Two-Generation Strategies?”, featured Letty Bass, Executive Director of Chambers Family Fund; Mimi Corcoran, Director of the Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation at the Open Society Foundations; and Alandra Washington, a Deputy Director at W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Offering insight into each of their respective portfolios – which include Ascend – the three spoke passionately about their foundations’ investments in moving vulnerable families beyond poverty, as well as shared the personal stories that spurred each toward a career in philanthropy. All three were active participants in the following day’s roundtable, exemplifying the way in which Ascend seeks to be hub and point of learning for its philanthropic partners.

A Framework for Two-Generation Strategies
Nisha Patel, Ascend at The Aspen Institute
Data slides produced by Child Trends

Investing in Children and Parents: Fostering Dual-Generation Strategies in the United States
Christopher T. King, Ray Marshall Center, University of Texas at Austin

The Digital Promise: Harnessing Technology and Innovation in Two-Generation Education Investment Strategies
Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago

Defining a Research Agenda: Dual-Generation Education
P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Northwestern University

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