[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 159 (Wednesday, August 17, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51056-51058]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-20971]


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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Employment and Training Administration


Notice of Random Assignment Study To Evaluate the YouthBuild 
Program; Request for Comment

AGENCY: Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Labor.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Labor (DOL or the Department) is prepared to

[[Page 51057]]

conduct an evaluation to provide rigorous estimates of the net impacts 
of services and training provided by YouthBuild program sites funded by 
the Department and by the Corporation for National and Community 
Service (CNCS or the Corporation). The Department has determined that 
it is in the public interest to use a random assignment impact 
methodology for the study. In the DOL-funded and CNCS-funded sites 
randomly selected to participate in this evaluation, all applicants for 
services and training under the YouthBuild program during a 12-18 month 
enrollment period will be required to participate in the study in order 
to be considered for services or training. Due to the random assignment 
methodology of the study, some eligible applicants will be enrolled in 
the study but will not be able to enroll in the YouthBuild program for 
24 months after their enrollment in the study. At that time, those 
youth randomly assigned to the control group can re-apply to the 
YouthBuild program. The Department is soliciting comments concerning 
the Department's plan to carry out the study.

DATES: Written comments on the plan to require consent to participate 
in the study during the designated YouthBuild sites' study enrollment 
periods must be received by the office listed in the addresses section 
below on or before August 31, 2011.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods:
    <bullet> Mail or Hand Delivery/Courier: Please submit all written 
comments (including disk and CD-ROM submissions) to Eileen Pederson, 
U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 
Office of Policy Development and Research, 200 Constitution Avenue, 
NW., Frances Perkins Bldg., Room N-5641, Washington, DC 20210. 
Commenters are advised that mail delivery in the Washington area may be 
delayed due to security concerns. Hand-delivered comments will be 
received at the above address. All overnight mail will be considered to 
be hand-delivered and must be received at the designated place by the 
date specified above.
    <bullet> Facsimile: Please send comments to Eileen Pederson's 
attention, at fax number (202) 693-2766.
    <bullet> E-mail: Please send comments to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#f28297969780819d9cdc979b9e97979cb2969d9edc959d84"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="730316171601001c1d5d161a1f16161d33171c1f5d141c05">[email protected]</span></a>.
    Please submit your comments by only one method. The Department will 
not review comments received by means other than those listed above or 
that are received after the comment period has closed.
    Comments: All comments on this notice will be retained by the 
Department and released upon request via email to any member of the 
public. The Department also will make all the comments it received 
available for public inspection by appointment during normal business 
hours at the above address. If you need assistance to review the 
comments, the Department will provide you with appropriate aids such as 
readers or print magnifiers. The Department will make copies of this 
notice available, upon request, in large print, Braille and electronic 
file on computer disk. The Department will consider providing the 
notice in other formats upon request. To schedule an appointment to 
review the comments and/or obtain the notice in an alternative format, 
contact the Office of Policy Development and Research at (202) 693-3700 
(this is not a toll-free number). You may also contact this office at 
the address listed above.
    The Department will retain all comments received without making any 
changes to the comments, including any personal information provided. 
If requested, the comments will be released to the public. The 
Department cautions commenters not to include their personal 
information such as Social Security Numbers, personal addresses, 
telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses in their comments as such 
submitted information will be released with the comment if the comments 
are requested. It is the commenter's responsibility to safeguard his or 
her information. If the comment is submitted by e-mail, the e-mail 
addresses of the commenter will not be released.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eileen Pederson, U.S. Department of 
Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy 
Development and Research, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Room N-5641, 
Washington, DC 20210. Telephone number: (202) 693-3647 (this is not a 
toll-free number). Individuals with hearing or speech impairments may 
access the telephone number above via TTY by calling the toll-free 
Federal Information Relay Service at 1-877-889-5627 (TTY/TDD).

I. Background

    YouthBuild is a youth and community development program that 
addresses several core issues facing low-income communities: youth 
education, employment, homelessness and affordable housing. The program 
primarily serves high school dropouts and focuses on helping them 
attain a high school diploma or general educational development (GED) 
certificate and teaching them construction skills and other 
occupational skills geared toward career or post-secondary education 
placement. YouthBuild seeks to incorporate widely-recognized youth 
development principles while training youth to give back to their 
communities by expanding the supply of affordable housing, albeit on a 
small scale.
    YouthBuild programs are operated by a diverse group of 
organizations, including community-based organizations, faith-based 
organizations, local government agencies, and educational institutions. 
These programs vary widely in how they fund services and the emphasis 
they place on various components of the program. Nearly 50 of the 
programs nationwide receive funding from the Corporation for National 
and Community Service (CNCS or the Corporation). These sites may place 
more emphasis on community service components of the program. Services 
and training provided by YouthBuild programs include educational 
activities, occupational/vocational training, personal development, 
leadership training, community service and a wide range of related, 
supportive services. Additional services also include staff 
assessments, counseling, and job placement assistance following 
completion of the program.
    The recent recession, high unemployment rate and limited Federal 
resources serve as a reminder of the importance of ensuring that 
services and training provided to those who are just entering the 
workforce will enable them to succeed and that the programs which 
provide those services and training are as effective as possible. In 
order to improve the management and effectiveness of Workforce 
Investment Act (WIA) services and related activities, including 
YouthBuild programs, section 172 of the WIA requires the Department to 
continually evaluate WIA-funded programs and activities. These 
evaluations must ``utilize appropriate methodology and research 
designs, including the use of control groups chosen by scientific 
random assignment methodologies.'' Congress, the Office of Management 
and Budget, and the Government Accountability Office have called on DOL 
to conduct rigorous evaluations in order to learn if WIA-funded 
services and training, including those specifically for youth, are as 
effective as they can be. Accordingly, ETA is conducting a multisite 
control group evaluation to provide rigorous estimates

[[Page 51058]]

of the net impact of services provided by YouthBuild programs funded by 
the Department and the Corporation. This evaluation will offer 
policymakers, program administrators, service providers, future 
applicants, and the public information about the relative effectiveness 
of YouthBuild programs, how the effectiveness varies by target 
population, and how the services are implemented. The study will also 
produce estimates of the benefits and costs of these services. Compared 
to peers who remain in school, high school dropouts are more likely to 
be disconnected from school and work, be incarcerated, be unmarried, 
and have children outside of marriage. Thus, the evaluation represents 
an important opportunity to add to the growing body of knowledge about 
the impacts of ``second chance'' programs for youth who have dropped 
out of high school.
    The complete experimental design impact evaluation of the 
YouthBuild program will take seven years, including a follow-up period 
that extends for four years after the last applicant is enrolled in the 
study and additional time for analyzing and reporting the results. The 
evaluation is funded by both the Department and the Corporation. It 
will measure core program outcomes including educational attainment, 
postsecondary planning, employment, earnings, personal development, 
delinquency and involvement with the criminal justice system. Random 
assignment will be conducted in approximately 60 randomly-selected DOL-
funded sites and 17 randomly-selected CNCS-funded sites. Youth in those 
sites who are eligible for YouthBuild services will be randomly 
assigned to one of two groups: the program group, which can receive all 
YouthBuild services, and the control group, which cannot receive 
YouthBuild services for a 24 months after enrollment but can receive 
services from other organizations in their communities. In the 
participating YouthBuild sites, all eligible applicants for YouthBuild 
services will be asked to participate in the study during the 12-18 
month study enrollment period. They will be informed of the evaluation, 
provided an opportunity to ask questions or seek clarification of their 
role and responsibilities should they agree to participate, and then 
asked to give their consent to participate. Applicants who do not 
consent to participate in the study will not be allowed to enroll in 
YouthBuild or receive services or training funded by the YouthBuild 
program. As will be the case for those in the control group, those who 
do not consent to participate in the study can receive training 
services from other organizations in their communities. The Department 
expects a total of about 4,600 YouthBuild program applicants to be 
randomly assigned to one of the two groups under the evaluation.
    The Department has determined that it is in the public interest to 
use a random assignment impact methodology because random assignment is 
generally viewed as the best and most feasible design for credibly and 
reliably answering questions about the effectiveness of social programs 
and policy interventions. More than any other approach, random 
assignment minimizes the chance that any observed differences in 
outcomes between research groups are due to unmeasured, preexisting 
differences between members of the groups. When implemented carefully, 
random assignment creates groups that are almost identical in their 
characteristics before the intervention, differing only in whether they 
are exposed to the intervention. As a result, differences in average 
outcomes between the groups can be causally attributed to the 
intervention.
    The Department recognizes that this design will assign some 
applicants to the control group, which will not have access to 
YouthBuild services. However, those who are assigned to the control 
group will be eligible for other services in their communities and also 
eligible to reapply for YouthBuild services 24 months after enrollment 
into the study.
    To protect the rights and welfare of YouthBuild applicants who 
agree to participate in the evaluation, the evaluation team, lead by 
researchers from MDRC submitted the YouthBuild evaluation design to 
MDRC's Institutional Review Board (IRB) for concurrence. An IRB is a 
committee specifically responsible for protecting the rights and 
welfare of humans involved in biomedical and behavioral research. On 
May 3, 2011, MDRC's IRB determined this study to be of no more than 
minimal risk and approved it.

II. Desired Focus of Comments

    Currently, DOL is soliciting comments concerning the Department's 
intent to carry out the random assignment study described above: for 
the limited enrollment period, applicants for YouthBuild services and 
training would be required to consent to participate in the study, 
where they would be randomly assigned to one of the two research 
groups. Applicants who do not consent to participate would be 
ineligible to receive YouthBuild services and training. This 
requirement would apply only to applicants in the limited number of 
YouthBuild program sites selected to participate in this evaluation.
    The Department seeks comments focused on whether there is a 
methodology that would yield as credible and reliable an evaluation of 
the YouthBuild program as random assignment, but avoids adverse affect 
on the study participants. The Department also welcomes comments that 
suggest ways to more effectively minimize any adverse impact on the 
study participants who participate in the study described above.

III. Current Actions

    Following receipt of comments in response to this request, ETA will 
adjust, as appropriate, the approach for temporarily requiring 
applicants for YouthBuild services and training at select DOL-funded 
and CNCS-funded sites to participate in random assignment. Comments 
submitted in response to this request will also become a matter of 
public record.

    Signed at Washington, DC, this 12th day of August, 2011.
Jane Oates,
Assistant Secretary, Employment and Training Administration.
[FR Doc. 2011-20971 Filed 8-16-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-FN-P


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