| 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: |
Project QUEST Evaluation
| Principal Investigator: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Economic Mobility Corporation, Inc |
| Project Duration: | January 2018 – December 2019 |
| Description: | Project QUEST provides employment training and services aligned with the skills most in demand by San Antonio, Texas employers. The Ray Marshall Center will be working with the Economic Mobility Corporation, Inc (Mobility) and building around their recent program evaluation of Project QUEST. This innovative partnership links both QUEST participants and similar non-participants to Texas Unemployment Insurance wage records. By combining self-reported and administrative data, the research will seek to verify self-reported outcomes, enhance the longitudinal tracking of employment and earnings both prior to and after completing QUEST, and measure long-term impacts of program participation. |
| Reports Available: |
Master Community Workforce Plan Evaluation
| Principal Investigator: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Workforce Solutions Capital Area |
| Project Duration: | January 2018 – May 2019 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) has partnered with Workforce Solutions Capital Area (WFSCA) to evaluate the progress of the Austin Metro Area Master Community Workforce Plan. The objective of the Master Plan is to effectively engage employers, community-based organizations, and educational institutions to more efficiently match employers’ skill needs and successfully prepare economically disadvantaged residents for family-sustaining careers. The RMC will investigate the educational and labor market outcomes of workforce development program participants, as well as variations in such results associated with demographic, personal, educational, and programmatic service regimes of the participants. RMC staff will work with WFSCA staff and area training providers to identify paths to the successful implementation of the Master Plan. |
| Reports Available: | Austin Metro Area Master Community Workforce Plan Baseline Evaluation Report Authors: Greg Cumpton, Cynthia Juniper, and Ashweeta Patnaik Date: October 2018 Publication Type: Report, 86pp. Family Work Support Benefits: An assessment of food and child care supports in the Austin, Texas metro area (MCWP Supplement: Poverty) |
Data Linkage for Padua™ Project Evaluation
| Principal Investigator: | Ashweeta Patnaik, MPH |
| Sponsor: | Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, University of Notre Dame |
| Project Duration: | April 2018 – December 2020 |
| Description: | The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame is examining the impact of an innovative comprehensive case management program, the Padua™ Program, created by Catholic Charities Fort Worth (CCFW). The program is designed to permanently lift people out of poverty. It addresses the fact that the disadvantaged face complex, multifaceted, and interrelated challenges by offering a new approach that considers the whole person and his or her environment by providing (a) detailed needs assessment, (b) wrap-around case management, and (c) financial resources. LEO is conducting a study to examine through a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluation whether this innovative intervention improves the well-being of low-income individuals.
The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) is supporting LEO in its research by linking data on Padua™ program participants to administrative data on employment, wages, TANF participation, and SNAP participation. RMC will help LEO evaluate the impact of assignment to the Padua™ intervention on TANF and SNAP participation, as well as on employment and earnings. |
| Reports Available: |
Impact Evaluation of SAEP Scholarship
| Principal Investigator: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | San Antonio Education Partnership |
| Project Duration: | February 2018 – December 2018 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center entered into an agreement with the San Antonio Education Partnership to conduct an impact analysis to answer four research questions, a description of the study population, data and methodology used, and a review of the existing research that attempts to answer similar questions about the relationship between grant aid and student outcomes. The four research questions are the following:
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| Reports Available: |
Einstein Project: Austin Youth STEM-CE Community Alignment Study
| Principal Investigator(s): | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | City of Austin |
| Project Duration: | November 2017 – March 2019 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center entered into an interlocal agreement with the City of Austin for process development, data collection, and analysis of youth-focused programs in science, technology, engineering, math, creative, and entrepreneurship workforce development programs.
Ray Marshall Center researchers will work with stakeholders, workforce organizations, local businesses, and local school districts, using a collective impact model framework, to establish regional baseline metrics to classify and assess current youth focused programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Creative, and Entrepreneurship (STEM-CE) for study and careers. Through the course of this assessment, the RMC will develop appropriate measurement instruments and techniques, produce a report describing current relevant activities, and propose methods and processes for the future evaluation of youth STEM-CE programming. This assessment of Austin STEM-CE programming will provide insight as to how scarce public resources can be leveraged to secure private participation in the development of a future pipeline of workforce, filled by the city’s current youth in poverty, which will connect to quality jobs in Austin’s future economy. Findings will be used to propose policy recommendations for Mayor and Council to consider that will enable program development or expansion to properly encourage students from backgrounds in poverty to enter into STEM-CE fields of study and careers. Some goals of future STEM-CE interventions may include changing attitudes about STEM-CE fields among students participating in such related programming, as well as improving their academic performance in STEM-CE subjects. |
| Reports Available: |
Examining Reproductive Health Services of Women, Female Youth, and Female Refugees in Northern Jordan with a Behavioral Economics Lens
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research |
| Project Duration: | August 2017 – July 2019 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will partner with the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to design, implement, and evaluate interventions that adhere to the Cairo consensus of ensuring women’s reproductive health and sexual rights (RHSR) and the rights of the vulnerable youth and refugee populations in the north while reducing population growth in accordance with the SDGs and Jordan’s needs. We propose to do this by using a combination of culturally sensitive anthropological practices and behavioral economic approaches.
A critical objective of this effort is to identify interventions that produce the desired outcomes cost-effectively, in order that these interventions may be institutionalized within Jordanian ministries and CSOs/NGOs and, therefore, more likely to be replicated throughout the country and sustained over time. |
| Reports Available: |
Pre-K 4 San Antonio Impact Study
| Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD and Michael Villarreal, MPP (Co-Principal Investigator) |
| Sponsor(s): | City of San Antonio |
| Project Duration: | March 2017 – December 2018 |
| Description: | Since the start of Texas’ public prekindergarten program, policymakers and education leaders have attempted to raise its quality. A recent survey of public prekindergarten programs found that 49 percent of local school districts offered students a full-day of prekindergarten; while 59 percent of districts adopted policies that limit class size, staff-to-student ratios, or both (Children at Risk, 2014). More recently, Governor Abbott has successfully advocated for funding to demonstrate and evaluate the effects of higher quality prekindergarten on student outcomes. At the local level, the City of San Antonio initiated an ambitious plan to demonstrate the value of high-quality prekindergarten by funding four demonstration centers, professional development for public school prekindergarten teachers, and grants to school districts to increase the quality of their programs.
Pre-K for SA (PK4SA) is the city agency leading the implementation of San Antonio’s prekindergarten investment. PK4SA has hired the Ray Marshall Center to be its research and evaluation partner to provide its first study of the effects of its high-quality prekindergarten on near and long-terms student outcomes. Moreover, PK4SA is engaging Ray Marshall Center to conduct its evaluation of PK4SA within a larger study of Texas’ public prekindergarten program with the goal of determining how the quality of public prekindergarten programs can be incrementally improved to have longer lasting positive effects on student outcomes. High-quality early childhood education has proven to be a cost-efficient strategy for increasing the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of participating students. This study extends the current research on early education by investigating heterogeneous effects on long-term student outcomes. This study will explore if certain programmatic aspects of prekindergarten have a greater effect on student outcomes than others. It will also explore if all student subgroups benefit from public prekindergarten and if certain groups benefit more than others. This study uses data from the state’s student longitudinal data system, which includes student outcomes from prekindergarten through their postsecondary education and employment. This study also benefits from the cooperation of local school districts in Bexar County who have agreed to share district tests of prekindergarten and kindergarten students. This supplemental data will be used in a regression discontinuity analysis to check the robustness of statewide results that are produced from a regression analysis using propensity score matching and fixed effect techniques. |
| Reports Available: |
An Evaluation of Austin Community College’s Title III SIP Proposal
| Principal Investigator: |
Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Austin Community College |
| Project Duration: | October 2015 to August 2020 |
| Description: | ACC proposes to establish an Office of Student Money Management (ACC-OSMM) – the office’s mission would be to give a stronger foundation to students’ academic and career goals and successes by helping them take charge of their financial futures.Two of the inaugural activities of ACC-OSMM will be:
ACC hopes to demonstrate that the activities of ACC-OSMM would be linked to improvements in measures of student success such as: graduation rate, time to completion, retention/persistence, and cohort loan default rate (CDR). ACC will partner with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to perform an evaluation, both formative and summative, on the effectiveness of these efforts on the student outcome measures of interest. Both types of evaluations provide actionable information about the success of the intervention while each successive cohort of recipients is in the process of receiving services, allowing for relatively rapid reflection and program modification as needed by ACC staff. Both evaluations are intended to measure the implementation, aggregate outcomes, and the impact of these efforts on Full Time First Time in College (FTFIC) loan or Pell grant receiving students’ graduation rates, 3-year Cohort Default Rates (CDR), retention rates, and fall to fall persistence for those who are Pell eligible. A host of intermediate steps related to these outcomes will also be measured. |
| Reports Available: | Evaluation of Austin Community College’s Strengthening Institutions Program Grant: Implementation Evaluation Findings Through July 2018 Authors: Cynthia Juniper and Greg Cumpton Date: November 2018 Publication Type: Report, 41pp. Evaluation of Austin Community College’s Strengthening Institutions Program Grant: Annual Outcomes and Impact Report Austin Community College Student Money Management – Implementation Evaluation: Program Description and Timeline Evaluation of ACC-SIP Initiatives: Baseline Assessment |
Creating a Sectoral Workforce Development Strategy for Tulsa
| Principal Investigator: | Cynthia Juniper, MA |
| Sponsor: | George Kaiser Family Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families |
| Research Partners: | Community Action Program of Tulsa County, Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child and Graduate School of Education, Tulsa Educare, University of Oklahoma-Tulsa’s School of Community Medicine, Northwestern University’s Institute of Policy Research, Columbia University |
| Project Duration: | July 2008 – September 2020 |
| Description: | In collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team of partners, the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) is developing and implementing a sectoral workforce development strategy for low-skilled, low-income parents of children served by early childhood programs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There is emerging evidence that children whose parents hold stable jobs with progressively rising incomes exhibit better academic and behavioral outcomes. RMC and its partners have undertaken a dual-generation approach to poverty reduction that strengthens the investment in early childhood development by equipping Head Start parents with workforce training and gainful employment opportunities. This approach employs a more holistic model than traditional workforce development programs, as it also includes employee counseling and other support services to help parents complete training and adult basic education, retain their jobs, advance in their careers, and become economically self-sufficient. The goal is to develop a sustainable sectoral strategy that can be replicated beyond Tulsa to other communities across the nation.
In the first phase of the project (2008-2009), RMC designed a sectoral job development strategy focused on industries featuring jobs that pay well and provide much-needed employee benefits (e.g., health insurance, annual and sick leave) as well as career advancement opportunities. In April 2009, Community Action Program of Tulsa County launched the pilot, CareerAdvance®, at two Head Start sites in Tulsa involving 15 parents. The components of the CareerAdvance® are 1) GED and college readiness instruction, as needed; 2) skills training in the healthcare sector progressing from Certified Nursing Aide to Licensed Practical Nurse to Registered Nurse; 3) weekly peer support meetings addressing a flexible set of topics (e.g., life skills, work readiness, family finances); 4) conditional cash incentives (up to $3,000 a year) for participants meeting specified benchmarks to reinforce continued participation and help offset foregone earnings; and 5) workforce intermediation between healthcare employers and training institutions provided through Workforce Tulsa. The report on the project’s first year of operation is available at the link below. In partnership with Harvard University and the University of Oklahoma – Tulsa School of Medicine, a second pilot site was opened in July 2009 at a Tulsa Educare Center. The second pilot, EduCareers, includes all components described above as well as enhanced mental health services for participating households, curriculum enhancements for the children, parent engagement training, and a medical home. The CareerAdvance® project has now been expanded to 2015 with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. RMC and partners at Northwestern and Columbia University have been engaged to provide ongoing on data collection, implementation, and outcomes analysis of project participants. |
| Reports Available: | CareerAdvance® Implementation Study Findings through FY2018 Authors: Cynthia Juniper, Christopher T. King, and Amy Anderson (Northwestern University) Date: January 2019 Publication Type: Report, 63pp. CareerAdvance® Implementation Study Findings through FY2017 CareerAdvance® HPOG II Transition and Expansion CareerAdvance® Implementation Study Findings through July 2015 Sustaining Two-Generation Strategies: A Case Study of Tulsa’s CareerAdvance® Program CareerAdvance® Implementation Study Findings Through July 2014 CareerAdvance® Implementation Study Findings Through July 2013 The Evolution of the CareerAdvance® Program in Tulsa, Oklahoma Expanding the CareerAdvance® Program in Tulsa, Oklahoma CareerAdvance® Implementation Report CareerAdvance® Pilot Project |
