Enacted in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) brought numerous changes to existing federal employment and training programs, including requiring the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Education (Education) to implement a common performance accountability system across the six WIOA-designated core programs. WIOA…

This report summarizes the final impact results for the national Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project. This project tested, using a random assignment design, the effectiveness of numerous programs intended to promote steady work and career advancement. All the programs targeted current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage…

Research completed since the 1980s has yielded substantial knowledge about how to help welfare recipients and other low-income individuals prepare for and find jobs. Many participants in these successful job preparation and placement programs, however, ended up in unstable, low-paying jobs, and little was known about how to effectively help them…

In anticipation of federal welfare reform, the Texas Department of Human Services developed and implemented the REFOCUS program, designed to enhance the economic self-sufficiency of English-as-a-Second-Language recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) through better use of existing education, job training, employment, and…

This two-part report describes various strategies for involving the private sector in job training programs and summarizes a study conducted with prime sponsors of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) programs in Texas. Included in a discussion of involving the private sector in job training programs are the following topics: the new…

This report on the early implementation of the Texas Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program and its impact on participants begins with an executive summary. An introduction outlines key research questions, components, and timelines. Section II covers program design and implementation and substate variations. The next five sections…

This monograph presents results from a study of the Texas Worker Adjustment Demonstration, a 2,192-person randomized experimental evaluation of reemployment programs for displaced workers conducted at three Texas sites during 1984-85. It describes in detail: (1) the background, design, conduct, and content of the programs at each demonstration…

These matrices summarize the content of the certification/chartering requirements established by nine first-round and three second-round implementation states to deliver services in One-Stop Career Centers. Seven areas or dimensions of design/operations are compared. The narrative accompanying the matrices is divided into two sections--a matrix…

Several trends have come together to intensify interest in how public libraries might best support the interests and needs of youth in their communities. This study reports on findings from the Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development (PLPYD) Initiative, a four-year, nine-site initiative funded by the Wallace Foundation to develop…

This handbook was designed to assist school administrators, vocational administrators, vocational agricultural teachers, and area consultants of vocational agriculture in developing, implementing, and improving an agricultural cooperative training program (especially in Texas). The handbook, which presents information in a narrative format,…

This report describes the ways in which the funds for supplemental vocational assistance provided by Title II, Part A, section 204 of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) amendments of 1978 have been used to provide services for eligible CETA participants in Texas. Outlined first are the climate and the background of CETA/education…

The first in a series of publications addressing issues of linkage and coordination of job training programs in Texas, this paper focuses on the background of federal and state events requiring new strategies for coordination of job training programs in Texas and examines the nature and purpose of coordination of job training activities and…

Early state and local progress toward implementation of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) was reviewed. Data were collected through visits to selected sites in Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Vermont and a 90-item Workforce System Information and Evaluation (WSIE) data collection form. The following aspects of WIA…