The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) compared the former Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) Private Sector Initiative Program (PSIP) with the traditional Comprehensive Services Program (Title IIB) in terms of participants, services, and outcomes in order to provide baseline data for the supervision of the Job Training Partnership…

This paper reviews the sections of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) that provide for using competencies gained by youth as evaluation tools. The paper discusses the types of competencies that youths should gain by such programs and how they should be measured, as an alternative to traditional program-based evaluation. The paper is organized…

This General Accounting Office (GAO) report on employment competencies for youth in programs funded under title II-A of the Job Training Partnership Act describes the extent and nature of youth employment competency training systems implemented as of June 30, 1985, and assesses the adequacy of competency attainment data available to States to…

The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) sees a strong connection between the dropout decision and unemployment in the teen years and beyond. It developed JOBSTART, a model of a project giving youths a chance to work and focusing on educational remediation, occupational training strategies, and support services to dropouts. To…

A 38-member Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) advisory committee was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor to review the country's employment and training policy, especially as focused in the JTPA, and to make recommendations for improvement. The committee found that two interdependent problems face the United States: a widening gap…

In times of economic recession, dollars for job training and job placement programs grow scarcer, and those that are available tend to go to middle-class workers who are displaced or temporarily unemployed. The structurally unemployed--primarily the poor, the less educated, and minority youth--find it harder to compete for the needed training, and…

The millions of disadvantaged youth, especially minority group youths, face a bewildering mix of job training and employment programs. Because of bureaucratic regulations and funding complications, most of these programs are not effective for the majority of youths who need them. To be effective, youth employment and training programs should…

The Summer Youth Employment and Training Programs funded by the Job Training Partnership Act were reviewed to determine how the various service delivery areas (SDAs) planned to assess and improve the reading and mathematics skills of participants. Telephone interviews with program officials at 200 randomly selected SDAs found that local school…

This journal issue summarizes the main points of a two-volume guide to youth performance management: "Working It Out: An Anthology of State and Local Performance Management Strategies Designed to Increase Services to Youth at Risk of Chronic Unemployment." The guide draws on the experiences of state and local practitioners in identifying…

It is argued that the Federal government's youth employment and training policy is at a crossroads and that a budget-cutting Administration and a deficit-conscious Congress face a choice between shortchanging American youth with subminimum pay or investing in employment, training, and education for the present and future of young people. First,…

This guide provides an introduction to competency-based employment and training under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The guide describes in general terms the steps service delivery areas should take to implement competency-based employment and training systems for youth. The content is based on the experiences of practitioners, and it is…

This paper summarizes the results of a National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) survey of community-based organizations (CBOs) about the effects of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Findings are summarized in these areas: (1) changes in funding for training disadvantaged youth, (2) changes in service to youth, (3) the role of CBOs in the…

The advent of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) has not been favorable to community-based organizations (CBOs) serving unemployed young people. The overall decline in the amount of money available for employment training is one reason for the reduction in services, but it is not the sole reason. The transition to the new act itself is also…

The advent of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) has changed the way community-based organizations (CBOs) can serve unemployed youth, according to the findings of the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) survey of CBOs; analysis of reports, surveys, and studies of the JTPA; and conversations with NYEC members and others concerned with…

Although young people across the United States have suffered disproportionately in the recent recession, the economic and social effects of high levels of youth unemployment have received only scant media and political attention and few state or federal dollars. Analyses of successful youth and young adult programs identified seven core principles…