The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full paper in PDF format.
Abstract
The President's High Growth Job Training Initiative (HGTJI) is a major national effort to encourage the development of market-driven strategies to address critical workforce challenges as defined by business and industry. As part of the Urban Institute's evaluation of this program, this first report documents the lessons, experiences and sustainability of 20 of the earliest HGJTI grantees as told by the project administrators. The purpose of the report is to summarize the major implementation lessons emerging from the early grantees and document the extent to which projects continue after the end of the grant.
Introduction
The President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative (HGJTI) is a major national effort to encourage market-driven strategic partnerships between the private business sector and relevant public entities. This report is the first of a series that will be released from the National Evaluation of the HGJTI being conducted by the Urban Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and Capital Research Corporation.
A. Overview of the HGJTI Initiative
The HGJTI initiative’s goal is to encourage market-driven, demand-focused partnerships between the private business sector and the public sector, including the workforce investment system, community colleges, and economic development agencies. Since 2002, over 150 HGJTI grants have been awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) to support the development of industry-driven solutions to meet workforce challenges identified by employers. The grantee efforts provide a rich source of information about various models and approaches that can be used to meet a key national goal of expanding the skilled workforce needed by high growth and high demand economic sectors. Grantees have used the funds to implement various capacity-building strategies, such as developing new curricula and materials for training workers for high demand occupations, increasing the number of appropriately qualified instructors, using new communication technology (e.g., web-based learning) to improve knowledge about industry and occupational demand, and operating occupation-specific job training projects. As of December 2006, most of the grants were still active, and new rounds of grants are being awarded. Some of the earliest grants have ended, usually after about two years.
B. The HGJTI Evaluation: Status and Future Components
The Urban Institute, with its partners Johns Hopkins University and Capital Research Corporation, are conducting a multi-component study of HGJTI, which involves an evaluability assessment for future experimental evaluations, implementation analysis, and early analysis of outcomes and impacts of job training projects in selected grantees. This report, the first in this study, provides an examination of 20 HGJTI grants awarded in the earliest rounds of funding. The purpose of the report is to summarize the major implementation lessons emerging from the early grantees and document the extent to which projects and activities initiated with the grant funds are being sustained after the grants ended. The information presented in this report is based on semi-structured telephone discussions conducted in the fall of 2006 with administrators of these early grants.
A brief overview of selected characteristics of these early grantees is presented first (Section II), followed by a discussion of their self-reported key implementation lessons (Section III) and their efforts to sustain activities initiated under the grant after the completion of the grant period (Section IV). Short profiles of the 20 grants appear in Appendix A and key accomplishments are detailed in Appendix B.
As mentioned, the evaluation of the HGJTI has several components, which include: 1) an implementation analysis; 2) an analysis of early outcomes and impacts of training in six grant programs; and 3) an evaluability assessment of the HGJTI to determine the feasibility of further evaluation using experimental designs. Each of these study components will inform the other to understand not only the early outcomes of these training efforts but also the context in which these grants operate. The analysis conducted during the implementation and impact analysis components will contribute to the evaluability assessment by examining project models and operations, participant characteristics, management information and financial reporting systems, and the feasibility of identifying appropriate control groups in a future experimental design evaluation. From this information, the feasibility of further evaluation of impacts, costs and benefits, and performance and results will be determined, and future evaluations options for DOL/ETA to consider will be presented.
Subsequent reports from this overall study of HGJTI are: (1) a report on the structure and implementation of selected HGJTI projects, including an evaluability assessment; and (2) a report on the early outcomes of job training on participants in selected grantee projects.
(End of excerpt. The entire paper is available in PDF format.)
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:
Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.
Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.
If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.
Latest Research
Browse by Topic:
PDF
Printer-friendly summary
