| Principal Investigator(s): | Heath J. Prince, PhD and Ashweeta Patnaik, MPH (Co-Principal Investigator) |
| Sponsor(s): | Nuru International |
| Project Duration: | September 2017 – December 2017 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) has partnered with Nuru International to write a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan for Nuru’s anticipated programming in Nigeria. The plan will include an exhaustive literature review, a review of Nuru’s past approaches to evaluation, a review of poverty measures, a review of Nuru’s Leadership Sustainability Index (LSI), suggested methods, and suggested survey tools. The planning process will include expert consultation, interviews with Nuru staff, document review, literature review, and overall close coordination with personnel on the Nuru International team. |
| 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: |
Regional Hiring Survey
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | Austin Regional Manufacturers Association |
| Project Duration: | April 2017 – December 2017 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will partner with the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association (ARMA) to conduct a survey of manufacturing employers operating within the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area in order to learn more about their workforce needs. RMC will work with ARMA to develop a customized survey that would provide new insights on a range of manufacturing workforce issues, e.g.:
Our aim with this study is to provide ARMA with a clear understanding of the current and emerging skill needs of area manufacturers, as well as a more complete picture of the resources available locally to help manufacturers meet their skill needs. |
| 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 2017 |
| 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: |
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 – December 2017 |
| 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: | Austin Community College Student Money Management – Implementation Evaluation: Program Description and Timeline Authors: Cynthia Juniper, Greg Cumpton, and Ashweeta Patnaik Date: June 2017 Publication Type: Report, 18pp. 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: |
Creating a Sectoral Workforce Development Strategy for Tulsa
| Principal Investigators: | Christopher T. King and Cynthia Juniper (Co-Principal Investigator) |
| 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® HPOG II Transition and Expansion Authors: Christopher King, Cynthia Juniper, and Amy Anderson (Northwestern University) Date: January 2017 Publication Type: Report, 31pp. 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 |
An Evaluation of Workforce Development Services in Travis County
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Travis County, Texas |
| Project Duration: | January 2006 – December 2017 |
| Description: | For more than fifteen years, Travis County has invested between $1-2.5 million in workforce development programs for disadvantaged residents. The purpose of the evaluation is to examine outcomes and impacts for participants in Travis County-funded community-based workforce programs over time and to provide recommendations and support for County and provider staff based on data analysis and best practice research. Seven providers with long standing County contracts have been the focus of an ongoing evaluation of the outcomes and impacts of local workforce services investments led by the Ray Marshall Center since 2006:
Researchers at the Ray Marshall Center have produced a series of reports documenting the employment outcomes and impacts for participants from these programs over time. Findings from this evaluation have also been presented to the local workforce board, the County Commissioners Court, and at Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) fall research conferences. Other Social Services Recently, the evaluation has expanded to include an analysis of other County-funded social services for disadvantaged residents. The first phase of this evaluation component focuses on analysis of historical Family Support Services (FSS) program data. Specifically, Travis County HHS has asked the RMC to review the evaluation design and methods implemented by BSS (Best Single Source), to create a parallel evaluation of the standard delivery of services (EACO or Emergency Assistance County Only), to help implement the evaluation, and to analyze and report on the results. The second phase of the evaluation will benchmark Travis County’s program with support programs offered by similar counties in Texas and beyond. |
| Reports Available | Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development: 2016 Update Authors: Dan O’Shea, Heath Prince, Cynthia Juniper, and Patty Rodriguez Date: April 2017 Publication Type: Report, 86pp. Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development: 2015 Update An Evaluation of Local Investments in Workforce Development: 2014 Update An Evaluation of Local Investments in Workforce Development: 2013 Update The Local Investment in Workforce Development Evaluation: Travis County-Funded 2009/2010 Participant Plus Longer-Term Outcomes for Capital IDEA Local Investments in Workforce Development: 2012 Evaluation Update Evaluation of Local Workforce Demonstration Projects – Travis County’s REM and GEM Projects Exploratory Return on Investment Analysis of Local Workforce Investments Local Investments in Workforce Development: 2011 Evaluation Update Rapid Employment Model Evaluation – 2011 Update Rapid Employment Model Evaluation: Update #2 Evaluating Local Workforce Investments: Results for Short- and Long-Term Training in Austin (TX) Local Investments in Workforce Development: Evaluation Update Rapid Employment Model Evaluation: Update Local Investments in Workforce Development: Initial Evaluation Findings Rapid Employment Model Evaluation: Initial Findings |
