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3 Implementation of the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act
Pages 69-98

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From page 69...
... Under YEDPA annual outlays for youth programs were double what they had been in previous years. In fiscal 1977, the year before YEDPA began operations, federal outlays for youth employment programs totaled $955 million and served 1.2 million youths.
From page 70...
... Although large compared to previous efforts, on a per-participant basis annual expenditures averaged only $1,311. Of the total $8 billion, $628 million was spent for discretionary and demonstration projects, including both the operation of the youth programs (which accounted for most of the expenditures)
From page 71...
... The joint Senate-administration proposal requested authorization for the establishment of three new youth programs, the Young Adult Conservation Corps, the Youth Community Conservation Improvement Program, and the Youth Employment and Training Program; it provided for joint projects by schools and CETA prime sponsors; and it provided for a large discretionary budget (50 percent of YETP) , as a mechanism to adjust the formula-funded allocations to the needs of various constituencies.
From page 72...
... It also significantly increased their workload as new reporting requirements for these programs were imposed on a system geared to different requirements. In addition to the YEDPA mandate to serve specific target groups of youths, which many considered a recategorization of youth services, YEDPA required that prime sponsors also maintain services to youth participants in regular CETA programs at their previously established levels.
From page 73...
... YEDPA Expenditures and Participation YEDPA mandated four new programs and expansion of the two existing CETA youth programs, the Job Corps and Summer Youth Employment Program. In 1978, three of the four new programs, the Youth Employment and Training Programs, the Youth Community Conservation and Improvement Projects, and the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects were reauthorized as an amendment to Title IV of CETA, along with the Job Corps and SYEP.
From page 75...
... describes the target group, program approach, and administration of each of these youth programs. Table 3.2 shows YEDPA expenditures and the number of youths served from fiscal 1978 through the termination of YEDPA in 1981.
From page 76...
... During the YEDPA period, the number of youths as a Percentage of total participants increased from 51 percent in 1978 to 69 percent in 1981; the majority of these youths, 60-70 percent, were enrolled in YEDPA programs. Tables 3.5 and 3.6 show expenditure and participant levels, respectively, for each of the six youth programs for fiscal 1978 through fiscal 1981.
From page 77...
... Discretionary and Demonstration Projects The Office of Youth Programs (GYP) emphasized research and demonstration as an integral part of YEDPA program operations as a means of exploring various program approaches and testing their relative effectiveness.
From page 78...
... The major YETP demonstration projects included an exemplary in-school youth demonstration, several career exploration and development projects, two planned variations of program approaches and service mixes, two major private sector projects, and a community service project as an alternative to regular work experience. The YCCIP budget plan for demonstrations during the same period totaled $47 million.
From page 79...
... The major interagency agreement in terms of total budget was YACC, operated jointly by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture and totaling $820 million. Because of its operational independence from the 2 The figures presented here are based on the planned expenditures for these activities as described in the youth knowledge development report, Knowledge Development Activities for Fiscal Years 1978 and 1979 (U.S.
From page 83...
... , an established corporation with previous experience in demonstration efforts, managed the YIEPP. LOCAL IMPLEMENTATION OF YEDPA YEDPA discretionary activities, both the programs and their accompanying research, were planned and managed by the Office of Youth Programs and implemented through the local CETA prime sponsor network.
From page 84...
... YEDPA broadened the base of local organizations involved in planning and operating youth programs with its requirements to involve communitybased organizations, the schools, unions, and private employers. To gain cooperation and thereby ease implementation and operation, program operators tried to involve all of the major parties in the planning stage.
From page 85...
... Although private employers were not actively involved in program planning, they did participate in some work experience projects, notably the entitlement program and the Public Versus Private Sector Jobs Demonstration. The effect of union and private business participation in program operations is discussed in Task 3.
From page 86...
... , many prime sponsors reported difficulty in recruiting the required numbers of youths for some YEDPA demonstration projects (e.g., the Career Intern Program, the Mixed Income Experiment, the Bureau of Apprenticeship Training Project, Opportunities to Learn and Earn, and Job Factory)
From page 87...
... The Role of Other Agencies The high participation rates of in-school youths in YEDPA programs in part reflects the chronic problem of recruiting out-of-school youths, particularly dropouts. Many prime sponsors have relied on employment security offices and certain CBOs to recruit dropouts for
From page 88...
... The emphasis on in-school youths also fits the historical trend of employment and training programs to serve this more reachable target group and to orient its programs to them. The Economic and Racial Isolation of Youth Employment Programs Another problem faced by prime sponsors in the recruitment of YEDPA participants was the strict income eligibility requirement and the image it created of YEDPA as a poverty program, and by association in many urban areas, a black program.
From page 89...
... than other YEDPA programs resulted in a large concentration of minorities in the eligible population. In addition, in those sites where the entire city was not the focus of the entitlement program, existing residential segregation combined with the requirement of residency in the entitlement area to increase the minority racial and ethnic character of the eligible pool.
From page 90...
... The time pressure under which programs were started and the YEDPA requirement that funds be given to programs with "demonstrated effectiveness" reinforced prime sponsors' reliance on established programs and providers, a reliance that case study reports suggest was warranted (National Council on Employment Policy, 1980b, 1980c)
From page 91...
... found that the higher the quality of work, the higher the displacement of nonsubsidized workers, suggesting the inconsistency between the provision that jobs not be make-work and the Davis-Bacon no-displacement requirement. The involvement of private businesses in youth programs met with mixed success.
From page 92...
... Case study reports of the formula-funded programs (National Council on Employment Policy, 1980b, 1980c) suggest that the overall quality of work experience under YEDPA was better than it had been in earlier youth programs.
From page 93...
... YEDPA RESEARCH: THE YOUTH KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT PLAN The YEDPA research agenda, known as the youth knowledge development plan, was designed and administered by the national Office of Youth Programs and implemented through agreements with local CETA prime sponsors and contracts with various public and private research agents and ~intermediaries." This effort consisted of various demonstration projects and of research and evaluation studies of them and of some formula-funded programs. Two major factors constrained the design and conduct of YEDPA research activities: first, the competing demand, both nationally and locally, to mount four new youth programs, at roughly double the level of previous funding, within the extremely short time limits imposed by the initial 1-year congressional authorization; and then, second, the demands of the Vice President's Task Force on Youth Employment for the results of the YEDPA research.
From page 94...
... A major review (Perry et al., 1975) of 252 evaluations of employment and training programs conducted under the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 indicated that the problems associated with evaluation research were not unique to youth programs.
From page 95...
... these eight questions, vague and imprecise as they are, remained as the essential issues of the YEDPA research effort. A later plan describes how specific demonstration projects were designed in response to these basic questions, but it provides no overall framework specifying research design, methodology, standards, or procedures for drawing together the rather disparate pieces of research to address the major research issues.
From page 96...
... The subsequent and equally unrealistic expectation of more detailed research results by the fall of 1979 to inform the Vice President's Task Force on Youth Employment served to maintain the time pressure throughout the course of YEDPA operations. The feasibility of the research effort was perhaps doubtful from the outset even under the most generous assumptions of staff time and capability: however, the OYP staff was small in relation to the size of the effort and also for the most part inexperienced in research and research management a These constraints, together with the legislative charge to involve other federal agencies and community-based organizations in YEDPA programs, led OYP to delegate the management of large pieces of YEDPA activity to organizations outside the Department of Labor.
From page 97...
... In responding to its first charge, CEIS criticized the knowledge development plan for its complexity and lack of coherent framework, criticisms that the results of YEDPA research suggest were warranted, but which unfortunately were unheeded. Their role in the retrieval, synthesis, and dissemination of YEDPA research was more effectively executed and became critical in the closing days of YEDPA when OYP was disbanded before the research was complete.
From page 98...
... The additional pressure to launch these programs and obtain research results within 1 and 2 years, respectively, of the passage of YEDPA further increased the pressures of implementation. consequences of all of these conditions for YEDPA program operations and research, though not quantifiable, were readily apparent in the numerous reports reviewed by this committee in its task of assessing _ The conditions characterizing the implementation of YEDPA from its start in 1977 through its abrupt halt in 1981 were described here to provide readers with a context for better understanding the results of our review of the effectiveness of the YEDPA programs, which we present in the chapters that follow.


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