Recent studies of the effectiveness of the following types of job training programs were reviewed: mainstream job training (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act and Job Training Partnership Act programs); welfare-to-work; experimental; job training for specific population groups; and specific services. Special attention was paid to the patterns of benefits over time, variability in program effectiveness, and the costs/benefits of job training. The following factors were considered as alternative explanations for the modest effects of job training: small programs yielding small effects; the mistaken strategy of job training; poor quality of job-related training; deep ignorance of good pedagogy; local political interference; low placement rates; "oneshot" job training and the links to other programs; labor market factors; special problems of youth programs; and the impossibility of "second-chance" programs. The following elements included in the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act were concluded to provide a vision for guiding job training programs: inclusion of academic instruction, vocational skills training integrated with academic (or remedial) instruction, and work-based education coordinated with instruction through "connecting activities"; connection of all programs in a hierarchy of education and training opportunities; and use of applied teaching methods and team teaching strategies. (Included are 27 tables/figures. Contains 83 references.) (MN)