Current Policy, Prominent Programs, and Evidence

This paper reviews the available evidence supporting various types of career and technical education programs, touching on both the amount of evidence available in each area and its level of rigor.
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Current Policy, Prominent Programs, and Evidence
This paper reviews the available evidence supporting various types of career and technical education programs, touching on both the amount of evidence available in each area and its level of rigor.
Final Impacts and Costs of New York City’s Young Adult Internship Program
This report presents 30-month impacts from a random assignment evaluation of a program that subsidized employers to offer temporary paid jobs to young people who were disconnected from school and work in New York City. After 30 months, program enrollees and nonenrollees fared similarly, with the former slightly more likely to report employment.
The Experience of a New Program for Young People Involved in the Juvenile Justice System
STRIVE International engaged MDRC to help the organization improve a new program model aimed at increasing educational attainment and employment of young adults involved in the juvenile justice system. This Issue Focus describes the partnership and offers advice to organizations implementing new programs on how to build evidence of effectiveness.
Four-Year Results from the National YouthBuild Evaluation
YouthBuild serves more than 10,000 young people each year at 250+ organizations nationwide. In a random assignment study, the effects observed after four years on education and work indicate that the program provides a good starting point for redirecting otherwise disconnected young people, but one that could also be improved upon.
Interim Impact Findings from the YouthBuild Evaluation
YouthBuild provides construction-related or other vocational training, educational services, counseling, and leadership-development opportunities to low-income young people ages 16 to 24 who did not complete high school. This interim report presents the program’s effects through two and a half years.
Lessons from Two Decades of YouthBuild Programs
Youth development is a cornerstone of the YouthBuild program, which provides job skills training, academic support, counseling, and leadership opportunities to low-income, out-of-school young adults. Participants attested to the transformation that can occur in an early 1990s study; a 2014 survey of program directors largely reaffirms this.
Findings from the YouthBuild Evaluation Implementation Study
YouthBuild is a federally and privately funded program providing construction and other training, educational services, counseling, and leadership development opportunities to low-income, out-of-school young adults ages 16 to 24. This first report from a Department of Labor-supported evaluation focuses on the implementation of YouthBuild in 75 sites across the nation.
Almost 7 million 16- to 24-year-olds are neither working nor in school. Part of our “Looking Forward” series, this policy memo argues that, while the research evidence on youth programs is mixed, there are some promising findings — and a resurgence in political interest — on which to build.
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