OCCUPATION OR INDUSTRY SPECIFIC TRAININGThe effectiveness of school-to-work programs and similar intervention strategies has been studied to a greater extent than many others, perhaps due to the influx of federal funds that followed the passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act in 1994. Findings indicate that these programs have had many positive results, although there are areas in which outcomes could be improved. The degree of success has varied, but the impact on the employment and earnings of participants has been positive in most cases. There is also evidence to suggest that participation in school-to-work programs leads to improvements in academic achievement. It should be noted that federal funds are no longer used to support school-to-work initiatives. It was intended only as seed money to help establish programs. An evaluation of The National Job Corps program (Burghardt, et al., 2001) made a "meaningful difference" in the educational attainment and earnings of participants, according to an evaluation (Burghardt, et al., 2001). Employment and earnings gains were found across most groups of students and types of settings. Furthermore, it was shown that participants in the program were less likely to commit crimes or be the victim of crimes and were less likely to receive public assistance. A cost-benefit analysis determined that the program was cost effective, despite high initial costs. It was acknowledged that the cost benefits were modest, but it was believed that benefits would continue into the future and that the limited time frame of the study could not reveal this trend. Another study based on focus groups with school-to-work program participants echoed these positive findings (Hollenbeck, 1996a). The study found that school-to-work programs stimulated student interest in occupations and that students made useful employer contacts. Participants also learned skills useful for future education and career plans, even though they might not enter the specific occupations of the programs in which they were enrolled. Finally, programs encouraged planning for postsecondary training by some students not originally headed in that direction. Despite the success, some barriers that obstructed school-to-work programs were identified. Operating as a worksite for students involved costs and getting postsecondary institutions involved in the programs had difficulties. A review of high school career academies in one large, urban school district also found positive outcomes in academic achievement; however, outcomes on employment and earnings were less identifiable (Maxwell & Rubin 2001). The career academy is a "school-within-a-school" that coordinates curriculum and activities around a single occupation or industry. Based on a study of 10,000 students, researchers found that, relative to a comparison group, program participants showed an increase in grade point average, lower dropout rates and a greater likelihood to attend postsecondary education. Findings indicated that a network of social support leads to better educational outcomes. However, with respect to employment or wages, participants fared no better in the period immediately following high school. Academic achievement was credited to several factors, including a relatively complete curriculum offered to students; an environment that sheltered students from hostile or indifferent school environments and a social support system of teachers and peers; program leaders with commitment and energy that inspired teachers and students, and support from the school and community. An evaluation of the Manufacturing Technology Partnership (MTP) program in Flint, Mich., found improvements in both academic and employment outcomes (Hollenbeck 1996b). MTP originated as a pre-apprenticeship program but evolved into a more general school-to-work program that prepares young people for careers in manufacturing. Students who participated in the program had higher grade point averages and higher-class ranks than students in a comparison group; absences were reduced among participants. Students also had advantages in employment rates, wage rates and average hours worked. Additionally, it appeared that the program's impacts might be greater after several years. Program success was attributed to the effective implementation of a dynamic curriculum that integrated vocational and academic skills. In addition to the more formal evaluations of school-to-work programs, anecdotal evidence contributes to the knowledge of what makes a program successful. Based on an analysis of school-to-work programs in Boston, Tulsa and Pennsylvania, researchers offered several guidelines for securing the employer participation that has been recognized as a difficult component of these programs (Flynn 1994). They suggest targeting employers who are predisposed to participate in school-to-work programs; identifying a private sector "champion" to recruit other employers; emphasizing that school-to-work programs serve corporate and community goals; and concentrating on industries experiencing or anticipating skill shortages; that are operating in international markets or in markets with fast changing customer demands; that value and have a history of community involvement, and industries with a culture of education and training. A study conducted by a researcher at the Urban Institute (Lerman 2000) also conveys valuable lessons about school-to-work programs based on the experiences of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD, an international organization, helps prepare youth for careers by emphasizing academic standards and efforts to strengthen the schooling-career connection. Findings suggested that close institutional links between industries and schools are critical to align incentives for employers and youth. Employers are encouraged to hire and train students in career-oriented positions while students are encouraged to do well in school. The local labor market must be understood so as to target the jobs and careers with the most potential for growth and advancement. Developing an appropriate mix of academic education with occupational skills and work-based learning is equally important to ensure that the intensity of the academic and vocational education is appropriate to the jobs targeted. Other important elements identified were the provision of supportive services (such as child care, counseling and placement services) and soft skills training. While school-to-work programs have taken a prominent position in the work force evaluation literature, other assessments have been conducted. The Ohio Department of Education commissioned a study to assess the impact of the various work force development programs administered by the agency (Hollenbeck & Anderson 1993). Most programs are targeted toward adults and lead to a vocational certificate or occupational license. Surveys determined that most participants complete their program in less than a year and most find jobs. Over 80 percent of the participants were in the labor force at the time of the survey and about 75 percent were employed. Training programs resulted in higher labor force participation for men and higher wages for women. An area of concern was that only 60 percent of the employed participants were in jobs related to their training. Community colleges play an important role in providing education and training. A study of the impact of community college schooling on displaced workers in Pennsylvania and Washington analyzed data from unemployment insurance earnings records and college transcripts (Jacobson, LaLonde & Sullivan 2001). Data indicated that a year of schooling raised long-term earnings of displaced workers by 5 percent. While this was a significant difference, it was not as much as had been predicted. More than half of the gain resulted from the impact of schooling on hours worked. There also was considerable variation in the returns (in terms of wage increases) associated with different types of courses. Skills acquired from more technically oriented vocational and academic math and science courses have very large returns, whereas most other types of courses are associated with zero or sometimes negative returns. The National Governor's Association Center for Best Practices (2001) assessed the effectiveness of Regional Skill Partnerships in addressing skill shortages and promoting job retention and career advancement for low-income workers. Regional Skill Partnerships are consortia of firms, educational institutions and other community partners that tackle common problems facing a targeted industry in a region. The study did not measure outcomes for program participants, but did offer lessons for program implementation. The lessons included: using sound labor market and economic analysis as the basis for identifying target industries and employers; avoiding duplication of the functions of existing community institutions; supporting industry partnership with strong staff capacity, and building partnerships where there has been prior collaboration among firms within an industry. Grubb (1995) reviewed evaluations of several job-training programs initiated by the federal government over time. Based on this review, he determined that "A large number of job-training programs lead to increased earnings, and the benefits generally outweigh the costs - though the increases in earnings are moderate by almost any standards, insufficient to lift those enrolled in such programs out of poverty." He also noted that the benefits of these job-training programs fade out after four to five years because they rarely put individuals in career paths that lead to continued earnings increases (as formal schooling does). Programs have tended to provide greater benefits for women than men, and programs for youths have been largely ineffective (with the exception of very intensive programs like Job Corps). Grubb found the results from nearly 30 years of evaluation to be surprisingly similar, particularly given the variation in the kinds of programs that had been studied and the methods used. His broad conclusion was discouraging: "…thirty years of experimentation with job-training programs have created a substantial number of programs whose benefits - for individuals in dire need of employment and economic independence - are quite trivial, and are completely inadequate to the task of moving them out of poverty, off of welfare, or into stable employment over the long run." In an effort to provide guidance in program improvement, Grubb offered several possible explanations for the meager impact of job-training programs: 1) Most job-training programs are small - they last a very short time and often deliver a single kind of service rather than a variety of complementary services. 2) Basic strategy has stressed moving individuals into employment quickly. The underlying assumption is that an unemployed person's basic problem is to find a job and then will remain employed. 3) There is little or no explicit training going on in many on-the-job training programs - employers view programs as a source of subsidized labor and use individuals in routine, unskilled work. 4) Programs often suffer from bad instruction - job-training programs often use techniques based on "skills and drills." Instructors break reading, writing and mathematical skills into tiny sub-skills and then endlessly drill a series of inherently meaningless sub-skills. 5) Training programs are vulnerable to political interference. This usually operates to direct funds to particular service providers, regardless of whether they are effective or not. As a result, local programs have difficulty shifting resources from ineffective to more effective providers. 6) Job-training programs have not done a good job of placement - they either have low placement rates or do not place individuals in appropriate jobs. 7) Job-training programs enroll individuals with substantial barriers to employment and deliver relatively limited training; therefore they aim to place individuals in jobs with relatively low levels of skill and pay. This may reflect realistic expectations, but does little to help move people out of poverty or off welfare. 8) There are not enough jobs for unskilled or semi-skilled workers and the labor market is unable to absorb all those who complete training programs. 9) Many employers will not hire young people. 10) Those who fail to use the educational system to increase their skills and gain access to employment are, by definition, those with such serious intellectual, personal and motivational barriers to employment that no "second chance" system of reasonable cost could possibly help them attain stable employment. Grubb stressed the importance of connecting job-training programs to other training and education opportunities; he advocates combining demand-side policy with supply-side policy to help reduce barriers that originate from the market. Conclusions reached by Friedlander, Greenberg, and Robins (1997) echo those presented by Grubb. Like Grubb, they reviewed previous studies of government training programs and concluded, "The broadest generalization about the current knowledge of government training programs for the disadvantaged is that they have produced modest positive effects on employment and earnings for adult men and women that are roughly commensurate with the modest amount of resources expended on them. The positive effects for adults are not large enough to produce major aggregate effects on employment and earnings among low-income target groups, and the programs have not made substantial inroads in reducing poverty, income inequality, or welfare use. Moreover, they have failed to produce positive effects for youth." The researchers submitted that most of the information about the effectiveness of government training programs concerns their costs and short-term financial effects on participants. However, there is considerable uncertainty about the kinds of training that works best, the effectiveness of training for certain demographic groups and the appropriate policies to improve outcomes. Leahy (2001) investigated whether certain components of job-training programs positively affect the employment outcomes of women who had experience with Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Her study included a treatment group comprised of women who had received welfare-sponsored, government-funded job training, and a control group comprised of women who were comparable to those in the treatment group, but did not receive job training. Leahy found that, overall, job training had little or no significant effect on a disadvantaged woman's probability of working; however, specific characteristics of job training did have some effect. Women who had received more than one type of training were better prepared for full-time work, while women who received only one component of training (such as basic education) were less prepared. Structural and contextual factors had important effects, particularly for part-time workers. Community-level variables such as unemployment rate and region and metropolitan residence had a greater effect on transitions to part-time work than full-time work. Positive outcomes of job-training programs included higher wages for both full-time and part-time workers. Leahy stresses that helping disadvantaged women requires micro-level as well as macro-level intervention. Macro-level interventions include policies that encourage employers, communities and local governments to increase occupational and educational opportunities and effective welfare systems. Chapple (forthcoming) relied on in-depth interviews to examine why job histories varied among women welfare recipients. She focused on how the use of social contacts reinforces and reproduces inequality for low-income women. Chapple found that supply-side factors, particularly educational attainment, work experience and the age at which a woman had her first child, shape the type of job pursued, the search method selected and the extent of career orientation. She determined that the most useful type of resource networks are wide acquaintanceship networks from work and school that tend to emerge from, rather than precede, human capital development. Women who were chronically unemployed or changed jobs and occupations frequently were connected to the labor market through social contacts, but often failed to obtain education or develop a career. Chapple concluded that their social contacts failed to lead to consistent or promising jobs, and the very existence of these contacts kept them in the secondary labor market and often left them unemployed. The most effective contact networks were those that resulted from developing human capital through education and work experience. Career-oriented women tended to engage in a process of working, network building and learning. Chapple believes that demand-side policies (such as subsidies to increase wages) may be more effective for job-mobile women than training.
If the goal of work force training programs is to improve the quality and skill sets of individuals, to place them in jobs and to help businesses find an employee base in line with their needs, then a good work force program must balance the needs of individuals and businesses (International Economic Development Council). In trying to determine the effectiveness of labor force development programs that seek to improve the supply of workers, it is important to note that success varies with different population groups. Some programs have been effective in improving opportunities for women who are re-entering the work force, but have negligible effects for men. Similarly, some programs have shown positive results for incumbent workers but not new entrants. Target groups must be carefully considered when implementing a labor force development strategy. Labor force development programs that focus on the demand side of the equation must recognize that the demand for labor is directly tied to the demand for products. Just as supply-side programs must consider the needs of the local work force, demand-side programs must understand the needs of local industry. Effective labor force development programs will illustrate an understanding of both supply and demand. Some labor economists have shown concern that the emphasis on labor-supply programs (those centered on improving the skills of workers) can come at the expense of efforts to increase labor demand. Bartik has demonstrated that focusing on the supply-side is a limiting approach, particularly if the goal is to increase the employment opportunities of the poor. It is difficult or expensive to create large enough increases in the employment of poor persons to make a real impact on poverty; such programs can create displacement effects if demand does not rise with supply (Bartik 2001). The importance of establishing a balance between labor-supply and
labor-demand programs underscores the significance of local context
in developing and implementing an effective intervention strategy. see corresponding section in Strategies & Tools
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