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Policy Framework
Young people without postsecondary education or vocational credentials face an uphill battle in the competition for jobs. Though the economic boom of the 1990s cut youth unemployment by one-quarter, it failed to benefit African-American and Hispanic young people as much as their white counterparts, and youth who lacked a high school diploma were actually more likely to be unemployed in 1999 than in 1992. Improving employment outcomes among disadvantaged youth is notoriously difficult, which is why the Center for Employment Training (CET) — an employment and training organization in San Jose, California — has attracted considerable attention. Two studies conducted in the 1990s, one of them MDRC's JOBSTART evaluation, found that CET’s blend of vocational training and basic education substantially increased employment and earnings in this population. To find out whether this success can be reproduced elsewhere, MDRC's CET Replication Study is using a rigorous research design to examine the program’s implementation and effects on youth in 12 sites outside San Jose.
Agenda, Scope, and Goals
CET differs from other employment and training programs in key respects:
- Intensive participation in services. Most CET enrollees volunteer to participate. Unemployed youth make up a large proportion of enrollees, partly because the program demands a full-time commitment that many older and/or working people cannot make. CET also allows trainees to follow a flexible schedule known as open entry/exit rather than requiring them to follow a fixed schedule of completion.
- Employment and training services designed to mirror the workplace. CET’s basic education component complements its vocational training by helping participants build knowledge and skills that are directly relevant to the jobs for which they are preparing. Rather than offering general literacy classes, for example, CET helps people learn to read job-related materials.
- Close involvement of industry in the program’s design and operation. CET involves employers in the design and delivery of training and encourages peer instruction.
- Organizational capacity and stability. Based on decades of tinkering and experience, CET has developed a smooth system for delivering services in the context of San Jose’s Silicon Valley economy to a largely Hispanic population.
The main purpose of the CET Replication Study is to address two questions:
- Can this innovative program, which has a long history in a specific context, be mounted in new settings? How have the replication sites had to adapt the CET model?
- Assuming CET can be operated effectively outside San Jose, does it have effects on youth employment outcomes as encouraging as those found in the original site?
Design, Sites, and Data Sources
The study is focusing on how CET affects outcomes for people who were 18 to 22 when they applied for the program (though CET serves a broader disadvantaged population) for up to four and a half years.
Between 1995 and 1999, about 1,500 applicants in 12 sites were randomly assigned to CET, which made them eligible for the program’s services, or to the control group, which was barred from receiving CET services for 24 months. Because people were assigned to one or the other group at random, the two groups did not differ at the outset of the study. Therefore, any subsequent differences between them can be taken as effects of CET.
The CET Replication Study includes 12 sites across the country, six in the East or Midwest and six in the West:
- Camden, New Jersey
- Chicago, Illinois
- El Centro, California
- New York, New York
- Newark, New Jersey
- Orlando, Florida
- Oxnard, California
- Reidsville, North Carolina
- Reno, Nevada
- Riverside, California
- San Francisco, California
- Santa Maria, California
The research team is assessing CET’s implementation based on field visits, document review, and program records of enrollees’ characteristics and participation. The team is estimating CET’s effects on young people’s employment and earnings using surveys of program and control group members conducted 30 months and 54 months after random assignment.
Findings
A final report based on the 54-month survey is now available.
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