Comparing State and National Approaches to Education and Training Program Scorecards Final Report

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Release Date: July 01, 2019

Comparing State and National Approaches to Education and Training Program Scorecards Final Report

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About the Report

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To make good decisions about investing in themselves—in the form of additional education or training—American workers need pertinent, reliable information on how the skills developed in a particular program translate into job opportunities and earnings potential. To provide this kind of information to the public, some states have created websites (termed scorecards) that allow users to browse education and training opportunities. These sites may provide information about the organizations offering education and training programs, program cost, and other information. One of the key pieces of information sometimes included in scorecards consists of the labor market outcomes of recent program completers, such as the proportion of recent cohorts employed after finishing the program and their average earnings. In general, states that provide this information rely on earnings data from state unemployment insurance (UI) wage records. Despite the obvious value of this outcome information to prospective trainees, few states to date have successfully developed such systems, for myriad reasons.

Because of the challenges states face in producing such systems, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) was interested in considering potential alternative approaches. Recently, policy makers have been interested in understanding how to foster the more widespread development of these types of websites. One such alternative would be for the DOL to facilitate the process of creating these systems for those states not able to produce them independently.

To better understand how such an approach might work, whether it is feasible, and its advantages and disadvantages, DOL contracted to conduct the Comparing State and National Approaches to Education and Training Program Scorecards study.

The report describes the study in detail, including the main research questions, the approach, the data collected, the results of the analyses, and recommendations to the DOL.

Research Questions

  • Is it feasible to use national databases of employment and earnings data for state education and training program scorecards?
  • How different are employment- and earnings-related outcome measures for education and training programs when based on single-state UI wage records versus data from a national database of earnings?

Key Takeaways

  • There are limited alternatives in terms of existing databases with national coverage that could be used to support a national approach to scorecards.
  • In Missouri and Ohio, scorecard measures based on single-state UI data are not meaningfully different than if they were based on national data.
  • In New Jersey, scorecard measures based on single-state UI data are underestimated due to substantial missing data on trainees who found employment in other states.
  • The report provides three recommendations: 1) streamline the process of accessing the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH); 2) encourage and/or help foster regional wage record data sharing among groups of states; and 3) identify ways to enable information sharing among states, so states without scorecards may learn from states that have created and maintained scorecards successfully.

Citation

Davis, S., Wandner, S., Jacobson, L. (2017). Comparing State and National Approaches to Education and Training Program Scorecards: Final Report. Employment and Training Administration, Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.