At this moment, the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) has never been more important. The country is facing a dual crisis in youth unemployment and low postsecondary completion rates. Both are especially prevalent among low-income and minority young people. Across the nation, nearly 7 million young people are neither in school nor part…

Few Americans know the importance of community-based organizations, or CBOs, in helping tens of thousands of undereducated, underemployed young people find a job or go back to school. But the role of CBOs is growing more critical as the business, education, and philanthropic sectors increasingly recognize the need to enable the nation's millions…

This update presents some of the major issues affecting higher education occurring at the national level. At the Commission meeting, staff will also provide an oral update on any late-breaking events. The report also presents for the Commission recommendations on federal proposals. The Commission advises the Governor and Legislature on higher…

The Western Job Training Partnership Association (WJTPA) supports the periodic evaluation of the scope and effectiveness of national, state, and local work force preparation and work force education programs. The WJTPA believes that future programs must correct the problems inherited from earlier work force preparation programs, such as the…

Nationwide, public attention has increasingly focused on the need for a variety of early care and education arrangements to meet the changing needs of families. The demand for early care and education has grown for families from all socioeconomic sectors, intensifying as participants in welfare-to-work programs enter the workforce, and as work…

This report focuses on the foster family home, with special emphasis on the non-relative, county-licensed home in 11 diverse counties of California. The analysis address the following four principal concerns: (1) the process of deciding to remove a child from his or her home; (2) the abuse of children who are already in foster care; (3) the…

This case study describes the vocational education system and job training programs, especially those funded through the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act, in an unnamed metropolitan area of California. The data were collected as part of another larger national study of state and local response to the Perkins Act. Information was collected…

This booklet, which is designed to clarify facts regarding the minimum wage's impact on marketplace economics, contains a total of 31 questions and answers pertaining to the following topics: relationship between minimum wages and poverty; impacts of changes in the minimum wage on welfare reform; and possible effects of changes in the minimum wage…

This document contains the reports on audits of the one-stop systems in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Vermont. The overall audit conclusions were as follows: (1) the states have made substantial efforts toward forming new comprehensive workforce investment systems as mandated by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA); (2)…

This document explores selected issues related to connecting welfare reform initiatives and the literacy movement and provides basic information about literacy education and its economic impact. Literacy is defined, and similarities and differences between adult basic education, adult secondary education, and English-as-a-Second-Language programs…

The impact of one-stop career centers on the U.S. Employment Service (ES) program was examined through case studies of one-stop initiatives in the following states: Georgia; Ohio; California; Iowa; Oregon; Massachusetts; Texas; Utah; and Wisconsin. Of the nine case study states, only Georgia had not begun instituting a one-stop career center…

Selected state and local experiments in developing/supporting workplace-centered training programs were analyzed to identify issues relevant to developing a national policy for workplace training. Intensive case studies of state economic development/training programs in California and Illinois and the employment and training programs provided by…