| 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: |
Talent Metric Evaluation (Oregon Talent Council)
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | TIP Strategies |
| Project Duration: | May 2017 – August 2017 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will partner with TIP Strategies in the creation of an evaluation methodology for the Oregon Talent Council (OTC) that relies on new and innovative ways to measure the impact of talent investment in Oregon, and that can accurately and consistently track outcomes of interest. The project is composed of the following activities, divided into two phases: Phase 1 will develop a metrics methodology for OTC-related investments—how to measure investments in the niches that the Talent Council has identified as gaps. While the methodology will show how OTC metrics applies to an overall talent development framework, it will not develop detailed metrics for education and workforce investments controlled by other state agencies. Phase 2 will seek to develop a methodology for identifying key measures (approximately 5-7) by which aspects or desired outcomes of talent development could be benchmarked against other states. The primary purpose of the methodology for this phase is to establish a baseline to understand Oregon’s relative position in desired talent outcomes and be able to track the relative state’s progress over time. |
| Reports Available: |
Ray Marshall meets with organizers on comprehensive immigration reform
With immigration reform being front and center these days, Dr. Marshall has responded to several requests since the election from print and broadcast media to discuss immigration-related issues. In addition, he is consulting with a coalition of labor and other organizations who have reached out to him to help craft a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. Two recent meetings hosted by Dr. Marshall in Austin, TX, brought together members of the AFL-CIO, United Way Worldwide, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Economic Policy Institute to delve deeper into the issues.
The first meeting was held on Wednesday, 3/15, and included Jon Hiatt, Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and Ana Avendaño, Vice President of Labor Participation at United Way Worldwide.
The second meeting was held on 3/17 and included Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at EPI; Naomi Tsu, Deputy Legal Director of the Immigrant Justice Program at SPLC; Shannon Lederer, Director of Immigration Policy at the AFL-CIO; and Susan Marshall, lecturer at Concordia University.
Ray Marshall completing book on managing immigration
Professor Emeritus Dr. Ray Marshall, the founder of our Center and holder of the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs, is completing another book on immigration, which is tentatively titled Managing Immigration: Benchmarking International Best Practice. This book examines the best practices of other immigration countries—particularly Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K.—and discusses how the United States can adapt these lessons to create a more effective employment-based migration system. It is increasingly clear that the U.S. system, which relies largely on family-based immigration, will need to shift to a system that emphasizes migrants who have the skills and education to allow the U.S. to better compete in an increasingly knowledge-intensive global economy.
The book outlines the economic, political, and social impacts of immigration; describes problems with the U.S. immigration system; discusses trends in immigration; details some of the best practices of countries that focus on employment-based migration; critiques the increasingly important issue of best practices in integrating immigrants; and concludes with recommendations on how to improve the U.S. immigration system. The book will include a discussion of how the election of Donald Trump could affect American immigration, political, social, and economic policies and institutions.
Strategic Planning for San Antonio Works
| Principal Investigator: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor(s): | San Antonio Works and San Antonio Economic Development Foundation |
| Project Duration: | November 2016 – August 2017 |
| Description: | The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) along with consulting partner Jobs for the Future (JFF) will work with SA Works to develop an action plan for future work. The primary steps in developing the plan include:
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| Reports Available: |
RMC presence at APPAM’s annual fall research conference
Several RMC researchers attended the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s (APPAM) 2016 Fall Research Conference, The Role of Research in Making Government More Effective, held at the Washington Hilton in DC from Nov. 3-5. Dr. Heath Prince along with Dr. Chris King, Dr. Daniel Schroeder, Ashweeta Patnaik, and Sam Storey were all in attendance, with Chris, Daniel, and Ashweeta presenting some of their work as detailed below.
Social Science Research Associate Ashweeta Patnaik presented two posters. The first poster, presented on Nov. 3rd, highlighted the findings from the Center’s impact evaluation of the Gulf Coast IT Pathways project. In addition to sharing findings regarding the program’s impacts on participants’ education and labor market outcomes, she also focused on the challenges associated with evaluating a large multi-state consortium initiative. Her second poster, presented on Nov. 5th, highlighted the findings from the Center’s impact evaluation of Project GROW. Ms. Patnaik shared how the complex design of the demonstration project (which included multiple sites, differentiated service delivery and multiple program offerings) influenced the impact evaluation design and analysis, along with the evaluation’s findings regarding the program’s impacts on participants’ education and labor market outcomes.
Research Scientist Dr. Daniel Schroeder presented a paper on Nov. 4th demonstrating the success of a near-universal child support system known as the Texas Integrated Child Support System (ICSS). His presentation was part of a panel discussion “Noncustodial Fathers’ Contributions: Recent Trends and Consequences of Child Support Policy in the United States.”
Senior Research Scientist Dr. Chris King organized and chaired a roundtable on “Global Perspectives on Policies to Protect Workers” on Nov. 5th. Professors Hastings and Heyes from Sheffield University’s WOERRC, as well as Karen Livingston with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Ludek Rychly with the International Labour Office in Geneva, presented at the roundtable. Ms. Livingston is an LBJ alum (Class of ’02) and a past president of the LBJ School Alumni Association.
Dr. Prince attends Disrupting the Poverty Cycle Conference in Boston
Dr. Prince attended the Disrupting the Poverty Cycle Conference 2016 hosted by Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath) in Boston on Oct. 6-7. This year’s theme was Breakthrough Interventions and Outcomes, and it brought together varying participants and experts from fields including public health, child development, social work, public policy, neuroscience, education, economics, and business “to share science-informed approaches, discuss innovative policy solutions, and build active networks that sustain enduring intergenerational exits from poverty.”
Cynthia Juniper and Heath Prince have report published to Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development
RMC researchers Cynthia Juniper and Heath Prince co-authored a report that has recently been added to the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale’s Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development (OJWED). The report, Behavioral Economics and Workforce Development: A Review of the Literature from Labor Economics and the Broader Field, is intended to explore the strengths and limitations of applying tools of behavioral sciences to increase the participation and completion rate of training for lower-wage, front-line incumbent workers in ways that benefit both workers and sponsoring firms. You can view OJWED’s publication here.
This review and associated research on behavioral economics and workforce development were generously funded by the Hitachi Foundation.
RMC Researchers attend Behavioral Exchange 2016 conference at Harvard University
Dr. Heath Prince and Cynthia Juniper, with support from the Hitachi Foundation, attended the Behavioral Exchange 2016 conference at Harvard University on June 6 & 7, 2016. The Hitachi Foundation also sponsored a luncheon convening of experts to discuss the application of Behavioral Sciences to training low-wage, front line incumbent workers. Juniper and Prince recently completed a literature review, Behavioral Economics and Workforce Development: A Review of the Literature from Labor Economics and the Broader Field, to be published this fall in the Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development.
For more information about RMC’s “Behavioral Economics and Workforce Development” project funded by the Hitachi Foundation and to read the full literature review, please see the project page. Please note that the published version from the OJWED is scheduled to be released in August 2016.
RMC Research Spotlighted in Recent Issue of the Employment & Training Reporter
The March 9, 2015 issue of the Employment & Training Reporter featured Heath Prince and Chris King’s work on the State Workforce and Education Alignment Project (SWEAP) for the National Skills Coalition. Their paper, Using Pathway Evaluators for State Workforce Planning, which was written with NSC co-authors Bryan Wilson and Brooke DeRenzis, offers a step-by-step process for evaluating the effectiveness of career pathways. A courtesy reprint from MII Publications can be read here.
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