Several recent studies suggest a convergence of troubling factors when it comes to youth success: the job market for young people is stalling, school districts in our largest cities fail to graduate 50 percent of high school students, and across the country, a growing number of students are earning high school diplomas but not the skills they need to succeed in college and in work.

There is no time like the present to investigate what’s being done to improve these numbers, and how well it's working. The July 18, 2008 Capitol Hill forum, “What Works? Evaluating Programs Targeting Disconnected Youth,” looked at programs for disconnected youth—young people who are not working and not in school—and the evaluations and research designed to measure their effectiveness. The forum was hosted by the Community Service Society of New York and the DC-based Coalition on Human Needs, as part of the Working for Change series.

CFK’s intern Maria Allen attended the event and has this summary.

What We Know

The first speaker at the forum was Dan Bloom, who directs the Welfare and Barriers to Employment Policy Area at MDRC, a New York City-based research organization that evaluates social policies and programs. He outlined important facts about youth and the educational pipeline.

Bloom noted that high school drop-out rates in large U.S. cities appear to exceed fifty percent—which is in line with a recent national study by America’s Promise Alliance. These numbers contribute to the growing earnings gap between workers with and without college educations.

Bloom then examined what we know about programs to keep young people connected to school and help them prepare for work. He focused on results from rigorous evaluations of three types of approaches: (1) those targeting youth who are considered “at risk” but are still in high school, (2) second chance programs for youth who have dropped out, and (3) programs for both in-school and out-of-school young people.

Some programs that link schooling and job readiness skills, such as Career Academies—a school-to-work program that started in 1993 and is now offered in 2,500 high schools across the country—have been shown to have large and long-term increases in earnings, particularly for males. Career Academies targets ninth graders and features a “schools-within-schools” model providing small learning communities and work internships. After the program, participants continue to be followed, and are making considerably more money than the control group.

Why Aren’t We Seeing Better Outcomes?

Despite the success of some programs, many struggle to see long-lasting positive outcomes for their participants. Wendy McClanahan, vice president for Research at Public/Private Ventures, an evaluation organization, offered a guideline of elements that make programs successful and the components that evaluations should include.

The main take-aways from the presentations and the active Question & Answer session were that:

• Programs that are long-term, well funded, and involve community/adult mentoring aspects tend to be the most successful. Specific examples include: JobStart, New Chance, Job Corps, Service and Conservation Camps and the National Guard Youth Challenge.
• Successful programs are difficult to replicate, especially when they’re tailored to specific community conditions.
• Some programs such as Youthbuild and Gateway to College have strong outcomes but have not been evaluated using random assignment.

The slides below were distributed at the July 18 forum in conjunction with the presentation made by Dan Bloom. To comment on the draft chart or for more information, please contact Dan Bloom at dan.bloom@mdrc.org [1]. For information on MDRC's evaluations of programs for disadvantaged youth, please visit MDRC's Web site at www.mdrc.org [2].

[3]

[4]

[5]

Resources

• Connect for Kids’ Education topic page [6] includes subtopics on Beyond High School and Graduation & Drop-Out
• Community Service Society of New York City [7]
• MDRC [8]
• Public/Private Ventures [9]
• Forum for Youth Investment’s Ready by 21 Challenge [10]