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The report presents findings of the Pathways to Careers: Community Colleges for Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities (Pathways) evaluation consisting of an implementation study and a descriptive outcomes study. The evaluation is descriptive only, given the small numbers of participants included in the Pathways project and lack of a comparison group to measure impacts. The evaluation incorporates an overall design based on mixed data collection methods to support two interrelated and interwoven studies focused on implementation processes and programmatic outputs and outcomes.

In 2012 and 2014, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractors Urban Institute and Abt Associates to conduct the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Initiative National Evaluation. The implementation and outcomes evaluation, as well as a synthesis of third-party grantee evaluations, aims to document promising practices to deliver workforce education and training programs. 

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation describes the strategies implemented by the Rounds 1 and 2 TAACCCT colleges. The introduction provides an overview of the grant program, the national evaluation, and the implementation study.

Developed under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation, the brief highlights employers’ perspectives on community college relationships and offers insights for leaders and practitioners that can help them tailor their own approaches to helping colleges and employers in their local communities develop and maintain strong and productive relationships.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation describes the activities among all 263 of the Round 4 TAACCCT colleges based on a survey conducted in the fourth and final year of their grants. The findings support a growing body of evidence—from the national evaluation and third-party evaluations across all rounds—on the colleges’ partnerships, participant recruitment activities, and the strategies that encourage accelerated and enhanced learning, college persistence and completion, and connections to employment.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation presents survey results across all four rounds of TAACCCT grants to describe how the implementation of grant activities differed for three subgroups of colleges: rural colleges, colleges whose grant activities focused on their local economy’s recovery and expansion, and colleges that implemented work-based learning activities.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation focused on Round 3 TAACCCT colleges that summarizes key findings based on a survey of all Round 3 colleges that participated in the grants, totally 187 colleges, and interviews and focus groups conducted during site visits to 14 Round 3 colleges. This final report presents findings from the Round 3 implementation study.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation synthesizes findings from 87 third-party evaluations of the Rounds 1 and 2 TAACCCT grants. The findings are based on the final evaluation reports that assess the implementation of the grant activities and estimate the impact of TAACCCT on the education and employment outcomes of participants.

The brief explores factors affecting the implementation of statewide systems change in the Round 4 Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants, focusing on the experiences of statewide consortia. It first describes Round 4’s emphasis on systems change and then discusses systems change to improve community colleges’ ability to train workers in skills needed for in-demand jobs. The brief then presents findings on systems change efforts implemented by statewide consortia composed of multiple community colleges in one state.

The brief describes evidence-to-date on career pathways generally, the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) grantmaking approach, and the extent to which grant-funded colleges implemented key elements of career pathways (defined for purposes of this brief as those in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)). It also examines additional ways colleges used the grants to build career pathways systems.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation synthesizes implementation findings from the Round 3 third-party evaluations, for which grantees procured third-party evaluators as part of their grant-funded projects. This report focuses on the capacity-building activities the Round 3 grantees implemented to support “systems reform innovations” or “systems changes” within and across institutions to provide education and training to adult learners leading to high-demand jobs.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation synthesizes impact findings from 23 Round 3 third party evaluations that used quasi-experimental methods to estimate the impact of the TAACCCT projects on participants’ education and employment outcomes. Evaluators used statistical strategies to draw comparison groups that were similar on observable characteristics to the TAACCCT participant groups.

In 2015, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractors Mathematica and Social Policy Research to conduct the Performance Partnership Pilots (P3) for Disconnected Youth National Evaluation. The goal of the study is to identify and document the extent to which the P3 initiative increased coordination across federal agencies and programs to allow local communities the flexibilities they need to support disconnected youth.

The brief provides reflections from four evaluation technical assistance (TA) liaisons based on their experiences in working with grantees awarded as part of a Federal interagency initiative, Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3). The brief, (1) describes the P3 program’s TA supports, (2) reviews the roles and responsibilities of different types of P3 partners, and (3) describes the hurdles faced when working with partners and strategies to mitigate those hurdles.

The report is one in a series of implementation study papers of the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3) National Evaluation, which was contracted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) on behalf of the Federal partners supporting P3. It assesses P3 four years after its initial authorization, and is based on data collected from interviews with Federal agency staff and two rounds of site visits to the nine original (Cohort 1) pilots, conducted between 2016 and 2018.

The report from the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3) evaluation’s implementation study reflects on the early experiences of the nine Cohort 1 pilots. The data primarily come from interviews with pilot stakeholders conducted in spring and summer 2017. Across the nine pilots, the evaluation team interviewed 169 stakeholders, including P3 administrators, staff, and partners. The report begins by describing P3 as envisioned by the Federal government, describes the nine pilots to provide context for the emerging findings, and then presents the early findings.

The guide provides resources to support the recipients of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) National Health Emergency (NHE) Dislocated Worker Grants, for demonstration projects and disaster recovery, as well as other interested parties, in their efforts to provide employment services to people affected by the opioid crisis, help employers address opioid use disorder in the workplace and support affected individuals, and develop the health care workforce to help address the opioid crisis.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractors Mathematica Policy Research with Social Policy Research Associates and the Council of State Governments Justice Center to conduct the Pathway Home Reentry Evaluation. The study aims to develop design options for an impact and implementation evaluation to assess the feasibility of conducting an impact evaluation and examine the implementation of the Pathway Home Reentry Grant program.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund Abt Associates to conduct the Support to Communities Grant Program Evaluation. This implementation study aims to provide new and critical information on promising practices and implementation challenges in providing services that address both employment and treatment needs for those with opioid use disorders (OUDs) and substance use disorders (SUDs).

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Mathematica Policy Research to conduct the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Research Portfolio Project.

The report, the second of the Youth CareerConnect (YCC) project’s implementation study, examines the evolution of YCC program implementation, and focuses on the third and fourth years of the grant, when grant funding was scheduled to end. It also examines grantee approaches to sustainability of YCC activities and services as they approached the end of grant funding.

Using data collected throughout the implementation of the Youth CareerConnect (YCC) grant, the final report describes how grantees recruited employer partners and maintained employer and workforce agency partnerships; the services and activities partners provided; and plans for sustaining partnerships after the grant ended. The report draws on a mix of quantitative and qualitative data from three sources that bring together information at different time points. Appendix B provides details on each of these data collection efforts relevant to this report.

In 2020, Chief Evaluation Office, in collaboration with VETS, commissioned an implementation evaluation of the VETS Transition Assistance Program (TAP) Apprenticeship Pilot Evaluation under the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio of studies. Results of the study are intended to inform future efforts by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Urban Institute and its partner the Capital Research Corporation to conduct the Implementation Evaluation of the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants (YARG) under the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio of studies.

In 2020, Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Office of Apprenticeship (OA) and the Office of Policy Development and Research (OPDR) within the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractors Urban Institute and Mathematica to conduct the State Apprenticeship Capacity Assessment under the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio of studies.