Related Publications

This revised and updated PowerPoint presentation takes a look at where the funding for the young adult workforce services is at the federal, state and city levels.  It is a work in progress and will continue to be updated as information is received.

This report details teachers' and principals' perspectices on the high school dropout problem.  They recognize there is a dropout problem, know they are confronted with daunting challenges in classrooms and in schools, and express strong support for reforms to address high dropout rates. Yet, less than one-third of teachers believe that schools should expect all students to meet high academic standards, graduate with the skills to do college-level work, and provide extra support to struggling students to help them meet those standards.

This New York Times Opinion Editorial article discusses the dropout crisis and who it affects. 

This report looks at the national dropout crisis in America.   Specifically, 12 States that have the highest dropout rates.  Recommendations are also made for investments in dropouts.

This article summarizes the results of a two-year random assignment evaluation of three sector-focused job training programs which produced significant impacts for participants, including increases in earnings and employment.

This fact sheet describes 1) what a green collar job is, 2) the pressing need for a green collar workforce, and 3) how Urban Agenda is helping.

This report revisits and analyzes the trends of the high school discharge rate in New York City using data from the classes of 2000-2007.  Findings show an increase of 3.6% in the number of NYC students discharged, totaling 142,262 students which were not accounted for.  They were not counted as dropouts or included in the graduation rate calculations.  Eight more key findings are outlined and recommendations are made to address the findings.

The Congresional Research Service issued this report on disconnected youth to provide context for Congress about the characteristics of disconnected youth, and the circumstances in which they live.

This MSNBC.com article discusses how during this economic downturn young people are staying in school and those who had dropped out are returning to school or GED programs. 

This paper provides a common, neutral fact base on the educational achievement gaps within the United States and illustrates their relative magnitude.  In addition, the impact of this achievement gap on the overall economy and on individual life outcomes are highlighted.

This article discusses the challenge our workforce faces with young adults dropping out of school with very low literacy skills. 

This report shines a spotlight on the under-reported plight of America’s nonprofit organizations and makes recommendations for how the nation can respond.

This report shines a spotlight on the under-reported plight of America’s nonprofit organizations and makes recommendations for how the nation can respond.

This New York Times Op-Ed Columnist discusses how young people between the ages of 16 to 30 are being affected the most by the economic distress.

This PowerPoint presentation examines the role of a workforce development intermediary to convene, connect, measure and sustain.  It also explained the need for and development of a workforce development intermediary on behalf of “disconnected” young adults (ages 16–24) that are both out-of-work and out-of-school in New York City.

Early results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program Evaluation conducted by MDRC are presented in this report.

This guidebook provides the latest research, best practices, and key tools for meeting your community’s dropout challenge. The guide will help you develop community-specific plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school and to prepare for college, the workforce, and active citizenship.

This paper describes two New York City efforts that address critical junctures in the foster care system: preventing placements at the outset by strengthening families; and providing comprehensive and long termn supports for the older youth and young adults who are againg out of the foster care system.

This document provides a distillation of the major themes discussed in the National Youth Employment Coalition Learning Exchanges regarding struggling students and disconnected youth. 

This publication takes a look at the U.S. Labor Markets 2000-2008 employment trends, and provides a comprehensive workforce development response to the young adult employment crisis. 

This paper concentrates on the education and juvenile justice systems, and recommends ways that the state can prevent disconnection with changes in those systems.

This paper aims to link data on indicators across various human service domains to help lawmakers develop state policies that effectively reduce teen pregnancy, as well as comprehensive programs for very young parents and their babies.

This report examines the economic and educational situation of young adults, ages 18-24, in Washington. Selected best practices in comprehensive work and learning programs serving disconnected youth are presented. Postsecondary pathways initiatives are featured and concludes with recommendations for policymakers.

This New York Times Article discusses how the working poor and young people have been affected the most by the economy downturn.

The report discusses New York City's need for a coordinated comprehensive workforce development system.  And recommends the establishment of  a Mayor's Office for Skills Education to ensure that the City's workforce development efforts are comprehensively planned, fully coordinated, and focued on fields and jobs where career ladders existas well as sectors where the city seeks a competitive advantage for both employers and job seekers. 

This paper looks at strategies for connecting high school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24 to pathways to postsecondary credentials that have value in the labor market. Examples of innovations in policy, program delivery, pedagogy in adult education, youth development and dropout recovery, and postsecondary education are highlighted.

This report presents the Green Jobs in the U.S. economy as well as their distribution across metropolitan areas. It outlines areas of potential future growth, and forecast potential growth under a set of specific scenarios.

First Focus commissioned this publication to illustrate the universal recognition among thought leaders that children are not a major priority at the federal level, and that creative solutions are needed to once again increase the federal investment in children. The works in this book encompass proposals from various issue areas, including poverty, child health, early childhood, education, home and community, child welfare, and safety.

This research report analyzes the problem of "disconnected youth" in the Research Triangle region, determines the current state of the region's responses to the challenges, and makes recommendations in addressing the issue.

This report documents the need for investment in living wage jobs and local community development as important strategies for a true resurgence of the Bronx.

This report recommends policy and actions to expand CTE’s role in school reform efforts and to ensure that CTE provides a range of pathways that lead students directly into postsecondary education and/or workforce opportunities.

This research study examine's New York City's GED Testing System and makes recommendations for targeted reform and investment that would strengthen the GED testing system.

This New York Times Op-Ed Columnist discusses how young people who are disconnected go unnoticed in today's economy.

This report examines the risk and challenges youth face in ten distressed cities in the US. It provides an outline of how these communities can create a continuum of supportive activities to support youth in their development.

This report presents original and secondary research that shows the ability of service-learning to address some of the principle causes of dropping out.

The document describes practices and program models gathered from leading practitioners in New York City that serve youth who have dropped out or are on the margins of high school. It is compiled from in-depth conversations, written reports,meetings, and informal observations.

This study reviewed the (1) characteristics of locally operated programs that serve disconnected youth, (2) the key elements of locally operated programs to which directors attribute their success in reconnecting youth to education and employment, and (3) challenges involved in operating these programs and how federal agencies are helping to address these challenges.

This paper is one of a series of papers that have been developed based on partnerships that Youth Development Institute established between community organizations and colleges in New York City.  This paper discusses the successes and challenges of the partnership and how members engaged in a structured and collaborative process to learn how they could best meet the needs of formerly disconnected youth.

This white paper by the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy focuses on preventing disconnection among young people involved in the child welfare and children’s mental health systems.

This working paper examines the approaches, wisdom, and experience generated by the ChalleNGe program as well as the vast storehouse of knowledge and research, models and systems possessed by the military services that are potentially applicable to educating and developing youngsters who are at greatest risk of academic failure, economic marginality, and outright poverty.

This report takes an in-depth look at the “sector approach” to workforce training.

This Time Magazine article discusses the dropout epidemic and how New York City is trying to address this problem through Multiple Pathways program.

This report found that although the total number of children in foster care has decreased, the number who "age out" of the system has grown by 41% since 1998. In total, more than 165,000 young people aged out of foster care between 1998 and 2005 – nearly 25,000 in 2005 alone.

This report by the Latin American Youth Center takes a look at the following three programs that they created to reconnect disconnected youth to education and training: Workforce Investment and Social Enterprise (WISE), and The Next Step and YouthBuild Public Charter Schools.

This report represents some of the most innovative strategies being used by companies to support the positive development of young people by partnering with schools and youth development organizations to help deliver real-life and hands-on learning experiences to young people.

This paper identifies the key labor market and educational challenges facing young Black males in recent years, compares findings for Black males with those of men in other race-ethnic groups, and reviews some of the available literature on what seems to work or not work in solving these problems.

Eight cities are highlighted in this report (Albany, N.Y., Baltimore, Boston, Corpus Christi, Texas, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose) in which municipal leaders are collaborating across public systems to reenagage disconnected youth.

The report also summarizes key ingredients for success: the importance of mayoral leadership, the need for an effective coordinating body, and accountability structures and the use of data to ensure results.

This brief outlines strategies to create dedicated local and state revenue sources for youth programs and profiles these strategies at work in different states and communities. It also provides guidance and information on the capacity, funding, and community support required to create local and state dedicated revenue sources.

This report summarizes five of the nation’s many work readiness certificates, which are representative of the diverse range of such initiatives in terms of target population, certification requirements, geography, and other factors: the WAGE Certificate Program, the Workforce Skills Certification System, the Work Certified Program, WorkKeys Career Readiness Certification, and the National Work Readiness Credential. The report highlights the benefits and costs associated with each, as well as issues that stakeholders should consider in determining which approaches would most benefit their state’s unique demographics, economy, and political landscape.

This report looks at the convergence of three powerful sociological and economical forces that are changing our nation's future: substantial disparities in skill levels (reading and math), seismic economic changes (widening wage gaps), sweeping demographic shifts (less education, lower skills).

This publication aims to provide practical information on creating and maintaining public-private partnerships to improve and expand youth programs in states and communities nationwide. It draws from the wisdom and experiences of successful partnership leaders at the national, state, and local levels and offers guidance on existing and future partnerships.

This paper summarizes related research, and offer policy recommendations that have emerged from the New York City Partnership for College Access and Success work.

This report shows that although high school graduation rates are far lower than previously understood, federal action can significantly close the graduation gap within the next five years.

This publication looks at the experience and learnings of six organizations as they focused on becoming more outcomes-driven. It identifies practical, hands-on strategies to increase staff involvement and communication around data, so that what at first seems like impersonal information becomes a useful tool to better meet job seekers' and employers' needs.

In this article the author's share results of studies they have conducted and identify poverty as the fundamental driver of low graduation rates.  They suggest reforming or replacing high schools that are producing drop outs, and call for investments in research, development, and intervention, particularly in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

This report takes a look at the growing problem of disconnected youth in New York City. Analyzes the seven industries with projected job growth in New York, and discusses what can be done to prepare disconnected young people for higher education and the workforce.

This article in the TIME Magazine highlights the dropout problem our nation is facing.

This report assesses how far our society is from “making good” on the promise of a second chance for dropouts and offers a starting point for improving the record. It challenges several misconceptions based on a detailed look at who dropped out and how much education they completed by their early adulthood.

A primary purpose of this report is to approach the dropout problem from a perspective that has not been much considered in past studies – that of the students themselves. These efforts were designed to paint a more in-depth picture of who these young people are, why they dropped out of high school, and what might have helped them complete their high school education.

This report discusses several financing strategies that city and county governments have used to support workforce intermediaries and other employment training efforts. It also discusses the ways in which community colleges and Workforce Investment Boards, with support from local governments, are beginning to take on the role of workforce intermediaries.

This is the first of a series of papers on alternative education for the USDOL.  The paper reviews alternative education programs with a focus on re-engaging out-of-school youth to learning in order to better prepare them to successfully enter high growth occupations and careers.

This report, based on a survey of 22 of the 36 sites that were awarded signifcant Youth Opportunity Grants from USDOL, examines the approaches' strengths, challenges, and lessons learned, and offers recommendations for policy and practice.

This research paper describes the data sources and employment concepts and measures underlying the estimates of teen employment rates. Followed by a review of estimated changes in teen employment/population ratios over the 2000-2005 period together with comparisons over the past 25 years.

This research paper examines the nation's progress in achieving key educational and labor market goals of the Commission on the Skills of American Workforce in reducing school dropout problems, improving academic competencies of high school students, boosting employment and wages opportunities for teens and young adults.

This research report is on the lessons learned and results of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) demonstration which pairs English as a Second Language (ESL)/Adult Basic Education (ABE) instructors and professional-technical instructors in the classroom to concurrently provide students with literacy education and workforce skills.

This research report is on the lessons learned and results of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) demonstration which pairs English as a Second Language (ESL)/Adult Basic Education (ABE) instructors and professional-technical instructors in the classroom to concurrently provide students with literacy education and workforce skills.

This working paper raises the issue of New York City's disconnected young adults and offers recommendations for meeting the needs of these young adults.

This paper was prepared for Urban Institute Conference “Workforce Policies For The Next Decade And Beyond.”  The goal of this paper is to think through what role the public Employment and Training (E&T) system can play in helping people succeed in today’s job market.

This working paper examines employment and earnings over a four-year period for a group of disadvantaged out-of-school youth who entered the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Training (CET) Replication Sites between 1995 and 1999. It assesses the importance of three key factors as barriers to employment: lack of a high school diploma, having children, and having an arrest record.

This report is about the nations youth who do not complete high school, the increasing dropout rates in most states, and the factors in students’ lives that are closely associated with dropping out of school.  Approaches to increasing student retention that have shown to have positive results are also identified.

This report takes a look at New York City's disconnected youth, ages 16 to 24, who arare not engatged in school or work. It explores the rate of disconnection, trends and differences among various demographic groups.  It also offers recommendations.

In this report the author proposes the development of “fast track to college” alternatives that reinvent the relationship between American high schools and postsecondary institutions. The goals would be to: increase the numbers of students who complete postsecondary credentials; reduce the time it takes them to do so; and eliminate disparities in educational attainment by race and income by the end of the decade.

This report draws on P/PV's experience with different programs to show how to define a model's essential elements to increase the chances of successful replication. It contains lessons for program developers, funders and practitioners interested in adopting model programs.

This report describes current practice in both prevention and recovery, highlighting promising approaches that can help reduce stubbornly high dropout rates. It concludes with recommendations for state policymakers seeking to promote a more systemic approach to the dropout crisis.

In this publication the author's examine learning environments that appear to hold particular promise for vulnerable and potentially disconnected youth. They conclude with a discussion of policy opportunities for creating multiple avenues for young people to achieve to higher standards.

This report, commissioned by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, shines a spotlight on some of the unsung heroes - the caseworkers, foster parents, and adoptive parents who nurture and protect vulnerable children; the parents who overcome great odds and reunite safely with their children; and the children who show remarkable resilience in the face of profound and often prolonged difficulty.

This publication describes strategies used by three organizations to effectively engage employers in workforce development efforts. Employer-engagement strategies are outlined in detail to help other organizations substantively involve employers in daily activities and services.

This paper identifies the population at greatest risk of disconnection in the United States, and provides characteristics and data for disconnected youth and young adults.

This report examines the role that programs designed to serve educationally disadvantaged older youth can play in promoting positive youth development and subsequent self-sufficiency in adulthood. The report focuses on12 programs that have undergone rigorous evaluation and examines their effects on youth outcomes.

This brief outlines five strategies that can help to reduce the number of disconnected youth.

This publication identifies and describes four building blocks for a system of educational opportunity--and it proposes strategies for improving and expanding effective learning environments.

Commentaries by leading researchers address the critical subject of the state of American citizenship. The main areas addressed are committment to values and principles, that are essential to the functioning of a vibrant liberal democracy, and whether civic virtue is on the wane and actions that can be taken to reverse the trend.

This paper reviews which young adults are most likely to have major problems connecting with the labor force and proposes a series of programs and policies to respond to this population's needs.

This paper reviews the outcomes from most of the major federal programs designed to help youth connect with the labor force over the past thirty years. It identifies elements that increase the effectiveness of programs.

This report places youth employment programs within the context of youth development. It focuses on ten programs that serve youth under age 18, but it also considers some programs that include older youths.

This publication examines systemic barriers to achieving economic self-sufficiency for court-involved adolescents.  Exemplary programs and policy initiative that help court-involved youth become economically self-sufficient are provided.

In this volume of nine essays, leading researchers and practitioners in the field of youth development share what they have learned over the past decade about the potential challenges of the "youth development approach" and offer some suggestions about how to proceed in the coming decade.

A Compendium of more evaluations of youth programs. Summarizes 64 evaluations of career academies, school-to-work, Tech Prep, school reform, juvenile justice and related areas of youth policy.

This report refers to a generation under challenge, 18-to-24-year-olds who have recently come of age in the United States and have fallen victim to a neglected past and may be overwhelmed by its future. The report argues for an integrated and comprehensive service delivery system that can make a difference in disconnected lives.

This guide summarizes 69 evaluations of youth interventions involving education, employment and training, mentoring, service-learning and youth development to craft strategies affecting services and support for our nation's youth, particularly disadvantaged young people.

This policy statement serves as a guide for employers and intermediaries who would like to foster meaningful transitions between school and work.

This paper outlines ideas and strategies to engage alienated and disaffected young people in activities designed to help them acquire skills, gain work experience, and improve their lives.