Because CETA and vocational education programs have the potential of serving the important social goals of reducing unemployment and providing the benefit of training, evaluation control at the top is essential. This control can be exerted in a manner that avoids some of the pitfalls of overcontrol through providing more alternatives and…

An array of innovative policies has been suggested to address more effectively the needs of dislocated workers. A model has been proposed to simulate the impacts of a wage-rate subsidy (or salary supplement) program in which a dislocated worker who becomes reemployed would receive a payment equal to one-half the difference between the wage…

A study compared private and public training programs in the Baltimore (Maryland) metropolitan area. Survey instruments were sent to 105 individuals who had been identified as either directing or coordinating a job training program in the Baltimore area. Seventy-six usable survey instruments were returned (a 72 percent response rate). There was…

Underutilization of evaluation findings relative to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) legislation may not stem primarily from factors usually identified in the literature (e.g., methodological reasons) but may be superseded by a more potent factor such as the prominence of the policy or program on the national agenda. Viewed…

The Corporate Career Demonstration Project is a Federally funded program designed to provide economically disadvantaged young adults with specialized training, counseling and educational experiences. The project's major goal is to prepare these youth for entry level corporate career positions they would otherwise be unable to obtain. Applicants…

A methodology is needed for comparing the needs and wants of the private sector, public sector, and client sector in order to increase the involvement of the private sector in youth employment programs. Because such a methodology has not been available, the client (unemployed youth) is often at the mercy of the private sector employer and the…

The results of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) project at 10 Job Corps centers nationwide with 5,379 trainees indicate that effects of CAI after about 60 hours of classroom instruction are small and achievement gains are not significantly different from those of students taught conventionally. CAI may help motivate students. (SLD)

This paper describes an evaluation of a prevocational Work Experience Project called New Leaf, which offers unemployed homeless men and women the opportunity to acquire essential work-related social and employment skills in connection with vocational and educational services and drug-free treatment in a therapeutic community. The evaluation covers…

Using a "Knowledge Development Plan" prepared as a blueprint, the Office of Youth Programs of the Department of Labor has undertaken various demonstration projects and large-scale evaluation and complementary research studies. The Office is experimenting with alternative employment and employability development approaches for…

Because of various flaws in their design, most research studies that have up to now examined the transition of youth to the work setting have failed to pinpoint ways of improving existing programs. Many of these design flaws (including lack of a uniform set of outcome measures, failure to routinely incorporate control groups, and failure to design…