| 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 – November 2018 |
| 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: |
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 – November 2018 |
| 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: |
Investigating the Intersection of Sector and Race Equity Strategies
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | The Annie E. Casey Foundation |
| Project Duration: | November 2016 – June 2018 |
| Description: | There is a growing base of evidence demonstrating that sector strategies can produce positive outcomes for lower-income workers in terms of employment, income, and career advancement outcomes. At the same time, despite gains in recent decades, significant racial gaps in median income and labor market participation persist, with African Americans and Latinos working and earning less, on average, that Non-Hispanic Whites. As such, sector initiatives would appear to have promise as an important tool for advancing racial equity. Yet, the majority of sector partnerships presently discuss their work as “population neutral,” leading some observers to ask whether the lack of a more explicit racial equity goal among more sector initiatives is a missed opportunity.
The Ray Marshall Center, along with Workforce Matters (a consulting firm that provides innovative strategies and workforce solutions), are proposing to launch a partnership to explore via a survey and series of interviews 1) If and how existing sector partnerships are addressing race equity issues; and 2) The most promising practices among those initiatives that are doing so. For more information, please see sectorsforequity.org. |
| 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: Annual Outcomes and Impact Report Authors: Ashweeta Patnaik and Greg Cumpton Date: August 2018 Publication Type: Report, 26pp. Austin Community College Student Money Management – Implementation Evaluation: Program Description and Timeline Evaluation of ACC-SIP Initiatives: Baseline Assessment |
Mid-South Community College-led Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT) Grant
| Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigator: |
Heath J. Prince, PhD Ashweeta Patnaik, MPH |
| Sponsor: | Corporation for a Skilled Workforce and US Department of Labor |
| Project Duration: | June 2015 – September 2018 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC), in collaboration with the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), will be evaluating the efforts of the Mid-South Community College-led Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT) grant for the Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce (GMACW). GMACW’s mission is to help solve Greater Memphis’ skills gap by: aligning training and education programs with employers’ skill requirements, and with each other; connecting employers to cost-effective training and hiring support, and; driving coordination and improved outcomes among providers that serve job candidates.
While CSW is conducting the implementation (formative) evaluation, RMC is carrying out a quasi-experimental comparison cohort (summative) evaluation to measure the impact of these strategies. The impact evaluation conducted by RMC will seek to gauge the “value-added” from these enhanced training pathways. |
| Reports Available: | Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce TAACCCT Round 4 Grant: Interim Impact Evaluation Report Authors: Ashweeta Patnaik and Heath Prince Date: March 2017 Publication Type: Report, 53pp. Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce TAACCCT Round 4 Grant: Final Impact Evaluation Plan |
Administrative Data Research and Evaluation (ADARE) Alliance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Study
| Principal Investigators: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD and Ashweeta Patnaik, MPH |
| Sponsor: | U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service |
| Research Partners: | The Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore, University of Chicago, University of Kentucky, Georgia State University, and W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research |
| Project Duration: | April 2010 – September 2018 |
| Description: | The goals of the ADARE-SNAP study will be to analyze the interaction of SNAP caseload and recipient household composition dynamics aligned with receipt of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and participation in UI covered employment, and to demonstrate by state-specific approaches and accomplishments how analyses based on longitudinal files of linked confidential state administrative data files can be replicated in other states, and extended and refined by the partners in the consortium states.The Ray Marshall Center will link longitudinal files of administrative records – SNAP administrative data, UI benefits data, and State UI wage records – to understand the sequencing of SNAP and UI applications, factors affecting the duration of SNAP and UI benefits, and the extent to which these patterns of outcomes are affected by the recession. |
| Reports Available: |
