About the Report

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Job Corps, a program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA), is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive residential education and job training program for at-risk youth. Originally established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the program currently operates under the provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which was enacted in 2014. Studies of Job Corps have found promising results especially for older youth (Schochet et al. 2001).

As economic conditions change and the research literature evolves, there is a need to assess current best practices for serving today’s youth and consider options for enhancing the Job Corps program. To fulfill this need, DOL’s Chief Evaluation Office contracted with Mathematica Policy Research and its subcontractor, Decision Information Resources, Inc., to conduct an external review of the Job Corps program. The goals of the external review are to (1) document what is known about Job Corps and other similar programs, (2) identify promising evidence-based practices that Job Corps might consider for the future, and (3) present options for future research and evaluation. The external review project does not include an implementation or impact analysis of the Job Corps program.

The external review covers a broad range of topics that are relevant to the Job Corps program, including program operations and services. This report provides a high-level summary of the current research across more than 25 topics that are relevant to Job Corps today. The topics were informed by discussions with national Job Corps staff and an expert working group that was convened to brainstorm current practices that the Job Corps program might want to consider. However, this report neither provides a systematic review of the literature nor recommends which of the many programs and concepts discussed Job Corps should implement. An accompanying report, The External Review of Job Corps: Directions for Future Research (Lee et al. 2018), outlines high-level design options for future research on these topics.

Citation

Berk, J., Rosenberg, L., Cattell, L., Lacoe, J., Fox, L., Dang, M., Brown, E. (2018). Mathematica. The External Review of Job Corps: An Evidence Scan Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.