Workforce Development

ASPIRE Program Impact Evaluation Services

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Decision Information Resources, Inc via BakerRipley
Project Duration:	January 2019 – December 2019
Description:	BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers, Inc.) launched ASPIRE in early 2016 as a workforce development program designed to support underemployed workers in the Houston, Texas area to successfully move from low-wage jobs to living-wage, middle-skill jobs that provide financial stability and contribute to the region’s economic growth. Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR) is a Houston-based minority-owned research and evaluation firm that has been involved in evaluating workforce development programs over the full course of its 34-year history. An impact evaluation of ASPIRE will focus on comparing outcomes for program participants with program non-participants in order to measure the effectiveness of program participation. BakerRipley indicates that the impact evaluation seeks to answer the broad research question: Are ASPIRE candidates’ lives better off? And if so, by how much? The specific questions to be addressed by this impact evaluation per the ASPIRE Evaluation Plan are: What are the effects of program participation on ASPIRE client outcomes? How do effects vary for different client populations? How does participation in specific service delivery types affect client outcomes? What are the causal mechanisms? (What explains the links between program participation and outcomes?)
Reports Available:

Building a Workforce Data Blueprint

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
Project Duration:	January 2019 – September 2019
Description:	The Ray Marshall Center will provide research support to the WinDDOWS project, funded by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and implemented by the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The goal of the WinDDOWS project is to develop a workforce data infrastructure implementation blueprint.
Reports Available:

Ray Marshall interviewed for The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers’ Video History Project

February 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

In 1999, The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers embarked on a video history project to develop a video library dedicated to creating a repository of oral histories of distinguished individuals who played a significant role or who had an opportunity to observe milestone events relating to labor and employment law. All of the full-length video interviews and transcripts are archived at Cornell University’s Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library.

On November 29, 2018, the College’s producer (Carol Rosenbaum) and crew videotaped an interview with Former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall at the Center. Ana Avendano, Vice President of Labor Engagement for United Way Worldwide, interviewed Secretary Marshall, who spoke animatedly for 4 hours, and never seemed to tire! An excerpt from the interview can be seen below.

Interview topics included:

His childhood in the orphanage
The role of the Labor Secretary
His role in President Carter’s policy-setting
Ensuring OSHA worked as it should
Management attitudes towards safety and health regulations
Programs he developed to assist women and minorities entering the workforce in large numbers for the first time – especially those who wanted to work in male-dominated industries (like coal mining)
Outreach apprenticeships and affirmative action
His efforts to bring African-Americans into construction apprenticeship programs
International matters under Carter
His involvement in international work, including pulling the United States out of the International Labour Organization (because of a disagreement with the Russians)
His work on immigration, including during the Carter administration and with the AFL – CIO 30 years later
The role independent trade unions play in a democracy – and how authoritarian governments are the enemy of labor movements
Strikes during his tenure
Labor unions today
President Trump’s policies

You can view the transcript of the full interview here , and a summary of the transcript can be viewed here. Credit for the video excerpt, transcript, and transcript summary go to The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Chris King and Cynthia Juniper attend launch of 2Gen Vision for Austin initiative

February 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

Ray Marshall Center staff, including Ascend 2-Generation Fellow Dr. Chris King and Cynthia Juniper, have been engaged in research on 2-Gen antipoverty efforts for more than a decade. The work began with program design efforts for the Community Action Program of Tulsa County with colleagues at Harvard to provide low-income parents and children simultaneously with high-quality human capital and related services. CareerAdvance® was piloted in 2009-2010 with support from the George Kaiser Family Foundation before securing 10-years of funding from USHHS’s Health Professions Opportunity Grant (HPOG) program. The evaluation of CareerAdvance® continues through 2020 with colleagues at Northwestern, NYU, Columbia and Oklahoma State University.

In 2015, King and UT emeritus professor Aletha Huston convened a group of thought leaders and funders from the community, including United Way for Greater Austin (UWGA), to craft a 2-Gen Vision for Austin. United Way subsequently stepped up to become the “backbone” organization for a 2-Gen collective impact initiative for Austin that has received generous support from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation for an intensive strategic planning process that culminated in the release of the Family Opportunity Roadmap: Austin/Travis County 2-Generation Strategic Plan, 2019-2023 in mid-December. King and Juniper were among other leaders of the initiative at the launch of the community-wide strategic plan on December 13th in Austin. To view video from the event, see the UWGA’s YouTube Page. To view photos from the event, see their Flikr Stream.

L-R: Sue Carpenter, CPO, United Way for Greater Austin; Jeff Travillion, Travis County Commissioner, Precinct 1; Carinne Deeds, Director of 2-Gen & Financial Stability, United Way for Greater Austin; Cathy Doggett, Planning Consultant, United Way for Greater Austin; Dr. Chris King, Senior Research Scientist, Ray Marshall Center, University of Texas at Austin and 2-Gen Advisory Council Co-Chair; Dr. Aletha Huston, 2-Gen Advisory Council Co-Chair; and David C. Smith, CEO, United Way for Greater Austin.

King and Juniper are continuing their engagement in 2-Gen efforts in Austin and Tulsa.

Central Texas Talent HUB

January 28, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Greg Cumpton, PhD
Sponsor(s):	Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Lumina Foundation
Project Duration:	January 2018 – December 2018
Description:	Many former college entrants interrupt their education prior to completing their degree, either dropping out completely or later returning to college. These non-completing individuals have college experience, familiarity with the application process, college credits, and knowledge of course enrollment procedures. These individuals represent a source of ready and readily accessible potential workers to whom the region could support to re-enter and complete college, increasing the labor pool of those possessing critical skills and knowledge needed in the local labor market. With direct contact information collected while in college and a repository of information about them, the Austin community intends to target this population for re-enrollment through advertising and other outreach efforts. Researchers seek to examine stop-out patterns, barriers leading to stop-out behaviors, and assess potential solutions to re-enroll students, eventually measuring the extent to which these efforts increased the number and share of individuals returning to and completing college.
Reports Available:

Investing in America’s Workforce Book Debuts

November 12, 2018 Leave a Comment

The Investing in America’s Workforce initiative introduces its three-volume book Investing in America’s Workforce: Improving Outcomes for Workers and Employers, with each volume focusing on a particular aspect of workforce development: Investing in Workers, Investing in Work, and Investing in Systems for Employment Opportunity. Hear from more than 100 authors who share research, best practices, and resources on workforce development. The book is the culmination of a two-and-a-half-year collaboration between the Federal Reserve System, the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, the Ray Marshall Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Visit www.investinwork.org/book for more information or download the volumes below!

Download Volume 1: Investing in Workers
Download Volume 2: Investing in Work
Download Volume 3: Investing in Systems for Employment Opportunities

If you would like to receive complimentary hard copies, please send your request to rmcinfo@raymarshallcenter.org.

RMC joins Workers Defense Project for Future of Work in Texas symposium

October 25, 2018 Leave a Comment

On October 23-24, 2018, the Ray Marshall Center joined the Workers Defense Project (WDP) and the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University to bring together scholars, funders, policymakers, community organizations, labor unions, and workers to discuss the challenges facing working people in Texas and analyze potential solutions to these challenges. The first day of the symposium on Oct. 23rd was held at the Bass Lecture Hall at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Among others, panel speakers for the first session titled “Future Trends in Texas Labor” included RMC’s Dr. Ray Marshall and Dr. Heath Prince, and the LBJ School’s Peniel Joseph provided the keynote address “Martin Luther King Jr., the Dignity of Labor, and the Future of American Democracy” during the second session. The event continued on Oct. 24th at the WDP offices for the final session “Emerging Solutions Across the South.” Funding for the event was generously provided by the Ford Foundation.