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Policy Framework
For low-income youth who lack basic skills and drop out of school, finding employment at a living wage is a challenge. Developed by MDRC as a nonresidential alternative to Job Corps, JOBSTART was an unusual collaborative effort to help disadvantaged young people join the economic mainstream. The idea guiding this demonstration project was that training coupled with higher levels of education — especially with attainment of the General Educational Development (GED) certificate — would serve as a stepping-stone to jobs and higher incomes. Operated in 13 cities from 1985 to 1988, the JOBSTART programs offered education and training as well as support services and job placement assistance. MDRC assessed the effects of the approach on young people’s education and economic outcomes in a random assignment research design.
Agenda, Scope, and Goals
Local institutions such as community-based organizations, schools, and Jobs Corps Centers ran the JOBSTART programs using funds from the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Each program was required to provide — or provide access to — the following services:
- Instruction in basic academic skills that allowed participants to progress at their own pace toward goals related to their reading, communication, and basic computational skills
- Occupational skills training that combined theory and hands-on experience to prepare participants for jobs in high-growth occupations
- Training-related support services, including assistance with transportation and child care, counseling, and, where possible, supports such as work-readiness training and financial incentives contingent on program performance
- Job placement assistance to help participants find training-related jobs
The evaluation of JOBSTART concentrated on four areas of inquiry:
- Recruitment. Could local agencies generate interest in this alternative education and training program among members of its target population?
- Implementation. Could sites implement a package of services that addressed participants’ needs while working within the constraints of JTPA?
- Participation. Were young people willing and able to invest their time and effort to participate in the program?
- Effects. Did the program increase high school diploma and GED receipt, employment, and earnings and reduce welfare receipt?
Design, Sites, and Data Sources
About 2,300 low-income 17- to 21-year-olds without a high school diploma or GED were judged eligible for the program. Each one was randomly assigned to the program group, which could receive JOBSTART services, or to the control group, which could not. Because the groups were determined by chance at the outset, any differences between them that arose over the study’s four-year follow-up period can be attributed to the program.
JOBSTART was operated in 13 cities across the country:
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Buffalo, New York
- Chicago, Illinois
- Corpus Christi, Texas
- Dallas, Texas
- Denver, Colorado
- Hartford, Connecticut
- Los Angeles, California
- Monterey Park, California
- New York, New York
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- San Jose, California
The strong positive effects on employment and earnings found for the program in San Jose — the Center for Employment Training (CET) — attracted federal support for CET’s broader replication in new locations. MDRC is studying the program’s effects in some of these new sites in the CET Replication Study.
The primary data sources for the evaluation were field research, program records, and surveys of program and control group members conducted 12, 24, and 48 months after random assignment.
Findings
Findings from MDRC’s Evaluation of the JOBSTART Project can be found in JOBSTART: Final Report on a Program for School Dropouts.
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