United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to Congressional Requesters

September 1995 WELFARE TO WORK

Approaches That Help

Teenage Mothers

Complete High School

GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Health, Education, and

Human Services Division

B-259612 

September 29, 1995

The Honorable Edolphus Towns

Ranking Minority Member

The Honorable Christopher Shays

Chairman

Subcommittee on Human Resources

 and Intergovernmental Relations

Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

House of Representatives

As the Congress and the administration consider how to reform the

nation’s welfare system and reduce the number of families that are

dependent on welfare, concerns have focused on the increasing numbers

of births to unmarried teenagers. This issue is of particular concern

because families started by teenage mothers represent almost half1

 the

families receiving welfare and are likely to receive assistance for long

periods of time, at great cost to the public. While low-income teenage

mothers stand a better chance of avoiding long-term welfare dependency

if they obtain a high school education, there is uncertainty about how to

achieve this outcome.

Because of this uncertainty, you asked us to provide you with information

on (1) approaches that show promise in helping teenage mothers complete

their secondary education as a step toward self-sufficiency and (2) Aid to

Families With Dependent Children (AFDC)2

 program activities that enable

teenage mothers on welfare to complete their secondary education.

To develop this information, we visited 13 local programs in New Jersey,

New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin that were

recognized by experts as being exemplary in helping disadvantaged

teenage mothers complete their secondary education. Since most of these

programs had not been formally evaluated, we also examined published

impact evaluations of programs serving teenage mothers to determine

which approaches had demonstrated success. We synthesized the results

of the five impact evaluations whose methods we judged to be rigorous

enough to produce credible results. (App. I provides additional

1

Families on Welfare: Teenage Mothers Least Likely to Become Self-Sufficient (GAO/HEHS-94-115,

May 31, 1994).

2

AFDC provides cash assistance to members of low-income families with children who were deprived

of support due to the absence, death, disability, or unemployment of at least one parent. Since 1988,

AFDC has had a training and education component, the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training

(JOBS) program.

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information about these evaluations and our synthesis of their results.)

Finally, we conducted interviews with AFDC and JOBS program

administrators in the 15 cities across the country that had the highest

numbers of births to unwed mothers under the age of 20 in 1992.3

We did our work between June 1994 and July 1995 in accordance with

generally accepted government auditing standards. We did not, however,

verify the information given to us by the AFDC and JOBS program

administrators.

Results in Brief Communities throughout the country have responded to the growth in the

number of disadvantaged unwed teenage mothers by creating a diverse

range of programs aimed at helping them move toward economic

self-sufficiency—in particular, to obtain a high school diploma or General

Educational Development certificate (GED). Our synthesis of rigorous

evaluations of five such programs found that three increased high school

or GED completions, and thus showed promise for increasing economic

self-sufficiency in the long run. All three of these programs actively

monitored school attendance and followed up on attendance with either

financial incentives or sanctions and/or aided in resolving barriers to

school attendance. In addition, they provided access to child care and

transportation. The two programs of the five that did not monitor and

follow up on attendance failed to increase school completions. The

common features associated with the successful programs were also

found in the 13 programs that we visited.

The 13 programs we visited, as well as the 3 successful evaluated

programs, exemplified a variety of approaches to serving teenage mothers

and provided insight into the types of services that program administrators

believe are necessary to help some teenage mothers complete their

education and to encourage responsible parenting. These programs also

provided examples of the different ways that services can be structured to

address these young mothers’ needs.

Moreover, some of the 13 programs we visited also provided examples of

innovative approaches for helping teenage mothers complete high school

that were different from the approaches taken by the programs included in

the evaluation synthesis. These approaches included alternative schools

for pregnant and parenting students within the public school system,

3

Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami,

Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.

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residential facilities for homeless teenage mothers on AFDC, home visiting

to assist teenage mothers and their families, and school-based programs

that served teenage mothers as part of a larger effort aimed at all at-risk

teenagers.

Although city welfare officials told us that they required teenage mother

welfare recipients to continue their high school education, 12 of the 15

cities we contacted did not take the additional step of monitoring the

attendance of young welfare mothers who were attending high school.

Welfare offices in 3 of the 15 cities we reviewed stood out, however,

because they reported monitoring and following up on the educational

activities of all their teenage mothers on welfare, even if they were still

attending high school when they applied for AFDC benefits.

The Congress is currently deliberating several reforms to the welfare

system, including whether to provide benefits to teenage mothers. Our

work shows that a number of approaches can work to help teenage

mothers complete high school; however, whether states will use these

approaches will likely be influenced by the final form of the legislation.

Background The birth rate for unmarried women aged 15 to 19 increased threefold

between 1960 and 1992 (see fig. 1). While the increase in births to unwed

teenagers is part of an increasing trend in births to unwed mothers of all

childbearing ages, the economic consequences are usually more severe for

teenagers because many teenagers who have a child forgo their high

school education. Having disrupted her education, the teenage mother

may never attain the diploma that the labor market increasingly demands,

even for low-wage jobs. Women who begin childbearing during their

teenage years are significantly more likely than women who postpone

having children to live in poverty, to receive public assistance, and to have

long periods of welfare dependency.

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Figure 1: Birth Rate for Unmarried

Teenage Mothers, Aged 15-19, 1960-92 Births per 1,000

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992

Year

Source: Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease

Control.

Nearly half of all unmarried teenage mothers are likely to go onto AFDC

within the first 48 months after giving birth. While unwed teenage mothers

as a group tend to stay on welfare for a relatively long time, those who

have not completed high school are likely to remain on public assistance

even longer. We reported last year that AFDC families headed by women

who did not have a high school diploma or its equivalent were less likely

to leave AFDC than those with at least a high school diploma or equivalent.4

Estimates of the public costs associated with supporting teenage mothers

and their children are high and growing. The Center for Population

Options estimates that in 1992 the federal government spent $34 billion in

AFDC, Medicaid, and Food Stamp benefits to support families started by

teenagers.5

 This was a 17-percent increase from 1991 and a 36-percent rise

from 1990.

4

Families on Welfare: Focus on Teenage Mothers Could Enhance Welfare Reform Efforts

(GAO/HEHS-94-112, May 31, 1994).

5

Data for 1992 were the most recent data available.

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In passing the Family Support Act of 1988 (FSA), the Congress recognized

the importance of a high school education to avoiding long-term welfare

dependence, especially for young parents. The act created the Job

Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program to provide employment

training and assistance for recipients of AFDC benefits. JOBS directs states

to require custodial parents aged 16 to 19, regardless of the age of their

child(ren), who have not completed their secondary education to

participate in educational activities directed toward the attainment of a

high school diploma or its equivalent, to the extent that these activities are

available and that state resources permit.

States are afforded substantial discretion in deciding how they will serve

AFDC recipients, including teenage mothers in the JOBS program. Although

FSA emphasizes the importance of education for teenage mothers on AFDC,

it does not require states either to provide all their high school dropout

teenage mothers slots in JOBS or to ensure that these teenage mothers

actually participate in educational activities by tracking their attendance.

As a result, teenage mothers who have dropped out of high school may not

be required to participate in JOBS if a state lacks the resources to provide

child care, transportation, or JOBS education or training. Moreover, those

referred to educational activities through JOBS may not actually attend. In

fact, states have moved unevenly to enroll teenage AFDC mothers, including

those who have dropped out of school, in JOBS. We reported recently, for

example, that one state enrolled as few as 7 percent of AFDC teenage

parents, while another enrolled more than half.6

 The number who actually

attend high school or GED classes is unknown.

The Congress is now considering welfare reform proposals that include

provisions that relate directly or indirectly to the AFDC program’s approach

to teenage mothers. A provision in the House proposal would deny cash

benefits to unmarried mothers under age 18, but permit provision of

noncash benefits such as child care or transportation assistance. Both the

House and Senate propose to increase the proportion of welfare recipients

who must participate in a work program and to reduce states’ funding if

they fail to meet participation goals. Most importantly for teenagers, the

House proposal would no longer consider enrollment in a high school or

equivalency program as work program participation unless the student

was also employed an average of 20 hours a week. In contrast, although

the Senate’s proposal permits states to deny cash benefits to unwed

teenage mothers, they are not required to do so. However, if states do pay

6

Welfare to Work: States Move Unevenly to Serve Teen Parents in JOBS (GAO/HRD-93-74, July 7,

1993).

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benefits to teenage mothers, those teenagers must live under an adult’s

supervision and be working toward high school completion.

Certain Approaches

Show Promise in

Helping Young

Mothers Complete

High School or GED

Numerous programs have been established in communities throughout the

country to reduce the negative consequences of teenage parenting. Our

synthesis of rigorous impact evaluations of five such programs operating

in multiple sites identified one feature that distinguished the programs that

increased high school or GED completions from those that did not: active

monitoring and follow-up of school attendance.7

 All five programs also

provided child care and transportation assistance; otherwise, these

programs were quite different. Table 1 outlines the programs’ major

characteristics (see app. II for descriptions of the programs and their

outcomes). While many of the programs we visited shared the common

features found in the five evaluated programs, they also provided

examples of, but had not yet evaluated, promising approaches to helping

teenage mothers overcome obstacles to high school completion. These

approaches included providing services in special schools, residential

centers, or the teenagers’ homes, as well as offering school-based

programs for all at-risk youth.

Successful Programs Had

Attendance Monitoring and

Follow-Up in Common

All five program evaluations provided outcome data on secondary

education completion. Although all five programs increased school

enrollment, only three were successful in helping young mothers complete

high school or obtain a GED: Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP), New

Chance, and Jobstart. While the ultimate goal is for teenage mothers to be

economically self-sufficient, only three of the evaluations included in our

synthesis measured economic impacts 2 years or more after teenagers

entered the program, and only one had successful results on postprogram

employment or AFDC receipt. No feature clearly set this program apart.8

Consequently, we focused on how to help teenagers complete their

secondary education. Although currently there is some debate as to

whether the GED provides the same earnings potential as a high school

diploma, we combined these measures because the programs we reviewed

encouraged either or both as routes to prepare teenagers for employment.

7

To assess program impact, each study compared program participants’ outcomes with those of a

comparison group of nonparticipants and applied a statistical test to determine whether the difference

was likely to have occurred by chance. See appendix I for more detail on the selection and review of

these studies.

8

However, even 4 to 5 years may be too soon for many teenagers to be expected to have

self-supporting jobs. Despite the program impacts, many teenage mothers still had not completed their

education, and many were barely over age 20, by the end of these studies.

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One program feature clearly distinguished between programs that

increased school completions and those that did not: The three successful

programs actively monitored school attendance and followed up either

with financial incentives and sanctions or with intensive case

management. However, attendance monitoring and follow-up took place in

different forms in the three programs that practiced them.

The LEAP program, run by the Ohio welfare department, combined active

monitoring with financial sanctions and incentives. AFDC offices

coordinated closely with school districts to obtain teenage AFDC parents’

attendance records on a monthly basis. When attendance problems arose,

LEAP followed up by reducing teenage parents’ monthly AFDC checks by $62

for unexcused absences from school. When attendance was good, LEAP

followed up with a comparable bonus in recipients’ AFDC checks. LEAP

participants in Cleveland had statistically significant, higher rates of high

school graduation or GED completion than those of nonparticipants 1 and 3

years after enrollment. The statewide program also resulted in slightly

higher GED completion rates over the short term (18 months after

enrollment) but had no information on high school graduations.

The community-based New Chance and Jobstart programs combined

direct attendance monitoring with either financial rewards or case

management. In both, most classes and other activities were held on-site

so attendance could be monitored through personal observation. When

classes or activities were held off-site, these programs coordinated with

providers to monitor the teenagers’ attendance. New Chance’s follow-up

consisted of intensive case management to help resolve participants’

problems that were identified through monitoring. For example, case

managers approached teenagers who had attendance problems to help

identify the barriers to good attendance. They then offered assistance,

such as counseling, on-site child care, or, for more specialized needs, help

in accessing the appropriate resources. Jobstart’s follow-up at a majority

of sites involved small financial rewards for maintaining good attendance

or for making academic progress; financial sanctions were not used. New

Chance participants had significantly higher rates of high school or GED

completions than did nonparticipants 1 and 1-1/2 years after enrollment.

The Jobstart program participants had higher rates of high school or GED

completions than did nonparticipants 4 years after enrollment in the

program.

Neither Project Redirection nor the Teenage Parent Demonstration was

successful in increasing high school or GED completions. The

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community-based Project Redirection was largely a mentoring program

that offered service referrals and sent teenagers to other sites for classes,

but did not routinely observe or keep track of their attendance, nor did it

follow up on their daily absences. This program, as well as others,

experienced attendance problems. In fact, teenagers attended GED classes

only about half the time, and those enrolled in regular and alternative

school classes failed to attend about a quarter of the time. The Teenage

Parent Demonstration staff kept track of participants’ mandated

enrollment in educational and other activities, but did not monitor or keep

track of daily attendance, nor did the program routinely follow up on an

individual’s attendance problems. Project Redirection participants did not

have significantly higher rates of high school or GED completions than did

nonparticipants at 1, 2, or even 5 years after enrollment in the program.

Teenage Parent Demonstration participants’ completions of high school or

GED were also not different from those of nonparticipants at 2-1/2 years

after enrollment in the program.9

We observed close monitoring of teenagers’ school attendance in many of

the 13 programs we visited. In six of these programs, monitoring and

follow-up were carried out formally through intensive case management.

The residential centers in Albuquerque and El Paso provided strict

supervision of the teenage mothers’ school attendance and performance,

as well as their other program activities, along with clear consequences

when teenagers failed to comply with rules. In some cases, teenagers who

did not obey rules were required to leave the facility; in some centers, they

could earn privileges by, for example, making good progress in school or

attending counseling sessions.

Other innovative programs monitored the activities of the young women

on-site in the public or alternative schools that they attended. For

example, students in the alternative schools we visited were required to

sign in daily. Child care centers in the schools offered additional

opportunities for monitoring because child care administrators and

teachers were quick to connect the absence of an infant from the center

with the possibility that a problem had emerged in the teenage mother’s

life.

9

School completion data reported here are from a limited availability report by Rebecca Maynard,

Walter Nicholson, and Anu Rangarajan, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: The Effectiveness of Mandatory

Services for Welfare-Dependent Teenage Parents, prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services, Contract #HHS-100-86-0045 (Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.,

Dec. 1993).

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Table 1: Components of the Five

Programs With Impact Evaluations

Program

component LEAPa Jobstart New Chance

Project

Redirection

Teenage

Parent

Demonstration

Number of

sites

7 13 16 4 3

High school

diploma, GED,

or basic skills

preparation

X X X X X

Vocational or

job training

X X X

Career

exploration

and

preemployment

skills training

X X

Job search

and

placement

assistance

X X X

Life skills/life

management

instruction

X X X X

Parenting

education

X X X

Work expenses X X

Attendance

monitoring

X X X

Case

management

follow-up

X

Financial

incentives or

sanctions

X X X

Child care and

transportation

X X X X X

aThe LEAP program operates in all Ohio counties, but the statewide evaluation includes seven

counties. Full school completion data were available from only one site, the city of Cleveland.

Child Care and

Transportation Assistance

Also Seen as Crucial

Teenage mothers’ need for child care was viewed as so important that all 5

of the evaluated programs as well as the 13 programs we visited attempted

to provide it, either directly or through reimbursement. Some programs

provided child care directly in the schools, in the residential facilities, at

the job training sites, or in the community. In some instances, the teenage

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mothers chose to rely on family members rather than the more formal care

provided by the programs. Unfortunately, some programs could not meet

the needs of all program participants, either because of limitations in the

number of available child care slots or because they lacked the resources

to reimburse the teenagers for the care. Program directors told us that

there were waiting lists for child care at many of the on-site centers, and at

one alternative school, teenage mothers who arrived at school with their

children after the center was full were sent home for the day. Without

child care, these young mothers were unable to attend school.

Many programs also recognized lack of transportation as a barrier to

teenagers’ ability to complete high school. In addition to having to get to

and from school themselves, teenage mothers often have to take their

child to and from a child care provider. As a result, many teenage mothers

were given transportation assistance, either directly or through

reimbursement, which was considered crucial by most program

administrators to the success of these programs. The Director of the rural

Salem, New Jersey, School-Based Youth Services Program (SBYSP) told us

of the complicated provisions she had to make—sometimes arranging

special school bus rides—to get teenagers to and from appointments,

school, and home.

Different Program Models

Helped Teenage Mothers

Complete High School or

GED

Aside from monitoring and following up on attendance problems and

providing child care and transportation assistance, the three programs that

demonstrated increased school completions—Jobstart, New Chance, and

LEAP—represent quite different program models. Their differences in

approach and the nature and extent of services offered demonstrate that a

variety of approaches can help young mothers complete their high school

education. Many of the programs that we visited resembled the evaluated

programs in the types of services they provided. (See fig. 2 for a summary

of services provided by the 13 programs visited.) However, because of

differences in the populations they served, we cannot directly compare the

effectiveness of these programs.

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Figure 2: Services Provided by Innovative Programs to Support High School Completion

Services

Financial

Social

Employment/Education

Child Care

Transportation

Housing

Small Scholarships

Parenting Education

Life Skills Classes

Counseling

Anger/Stress Management

Support Groups

Teen Fathers Program

Recreational Activities

Vocational/Job Skills Training

Job Placement

Job/College Fairs

Tutoring

Mentor Program

New Futures H. S.

Albuquerque, NM

Teen Parent Services

Portland, OR

Pivot

Portland, OR

a

Project Redirection

El Paso, TX

Transitional Living

El Paso, TX

Teen Parent Residence

Albuquerque, NM

Time of Your Life

Plainfield, NJ

New Brunswick, NJ

Salem, NJ

Milwaukee, WI

Teen Parent Academy

El Paso, TX

NJ SBYSP

School-Based Residential HomeBased Community-Based

Sites Schools

Alternative

Addison County Child

Center, Middlebury, VT

Teenage Services Act

Syracuse, NY

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Services

Special Features

Health

Mental Health Counseling

Family Planning/Pregnancy

Prevention

Child Development Classes

Home Visits by Prenatal

Community Nurse

Substance Abuse Counseling

Group Therapy

Health Care

Case Management

Teen Parent Coordinator/Advisor

Sanctions for Repeat Pregnancy

Summer Program

Program for Dropouts

In-Home Visits

On-Site Health Clinic

New Futures H. S.

Albuquerque, NM

Teen Parent Services

Portland, OR

Pivot

Portland, OR

a

Project Redirection

El Paso, TX

Transitional Living

El Paso, TX

Teen Parent Residence

Albuquerque, NM

Time of Your Life

Plainfield, NJ

New Brunswick, NJ

Salem, NJ

Milwaukee, WI

Teen Parent Academy

El Paso, TX

NJ SBYSP

School-Based Residential HomeBased Community-Based

Addison County Child

Center, Middlebury, VT

Teenage Services Act

Syracuse, NY

Sites Schools

Alternative

aPivot is a New Chance site.

Supporting Vocational

Preparation With Educational

Services

The Jobstart program represented a vocational preparation model for

disadvantaged high school dropouts—not just teenage mothers, but other

young women and men. It provided GED preparation and basic skills

instruction as well as training and job placement assistance. Counseling

and assistance with child care and work expenses were provided, as

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needed, to facilitate participation. Many of the programs we visited

recognized the importance of employment-related services. For example,

the New Jersey School-Based Youth Services Program offered job training

and placement services, assistance with career development, and

preparation for the world of work. Program directors remarked on these

teenagers’ need to develop the good work habits—such as punctuality,

self-discipline, and reliability—that are required for school completion as

well as for future success on the job. In addition to offering special

workshops, the Plainfield, New Jersey, Teenage Parenting Program also

engaged volunteer mentors from AT&T and the community to provide

moral support and counseling, as well as career development and training

services.

Providing a Comprehensive

Package of Educational,

Vocational, and Social Services

New Chance represented a comprehensive services model designed to

meet the wide range of needs of young AFDC mothers who had dropped out

of school and those of their children. It combined education and

employment preparation with case management and an array of health

and social services. New Chance’s one-stop, drop-in centers offered basic

education (or GED preparation) in an initial phase and employment

preparation in a later phase; classes in parenting and life skills; and

workshops on family planning and substance abuse to most participants

on-site. Comprehensive health services for mothers and children and job

skills training were often provided off-site.

While few of the programs we visited incorporated the diverse

components of the New Chance model,10 many found the need to provide

a range of supportive social services. The majority of programs we visited

provided personal counseling or support groups to help teenagers deal

with a range of personal problems that slowed their progress toward

attaining a diploma. A number of programs offered courses in life skills

covering a variety of topics, including substance abuse prevention and

communication skills. Several administrators identified low self-esteem

among these young women as a contributor to school failure.

Consequently, some programs, like Milwaukee’s Time of Your Life,

provided group workshops specifically designed to build self-esteem.

Most of the programs we visited offered parenting education in which the

young women learned about child development, maternal and child health,

and appropriate methods of discipline. Such training was considered

especially important because of the relative immaturity of these young

women facing the challenges of parenting, as well as the history of abuse

10We did visit the Pivot program in Oregon, a New Chance site.

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that many of these teenagers had experienced. Programs reinforced

parenting skills in a variety of ways, such as by pairing communication and

parenting skills in a job training program, and by incorporating instruction

with modeling and observation in their child care centers.

New Chance, as well as many of the programs we visited, explicitly aims

to improve the life chances of both the teenager and her child. Routine

health care for mother and child was provided on-site in some of the

programs we visited, while other programs developed close connections

with local community providers to ensure continuity of care. For example,

in the New Futures alternative high school, day care center and clinic staff

counseled mothers on what to look for and do for their children when they

appeared sick.

Providing Limited Services

With Financial Incentives

LEAP had the simplest of the program models evaluated, representing no

more than the common features described in the previous section:

monitoring and following up on attendance in high school (or for some,

GED classes) and providing assistance with child care and transportation

on an as-needed basis.11 Teenage parents were enrolled in JOBS (including

many still in high school), and program follow-up took the form of tying

AFDC benefit levels to their attendance records. AFDC programs in

Wisconsin and California, which are experimenting with similar ways of

using financial incentives to back up their requirement for teenage parents

(in Wisconsin, all teenagers) to attend school, are discussed later in this

report.

The fact that LEAP successfully increased the rate of school completions

without providing extensive services may mean that such services are not

required to obtain improvements on average, or it may reflect other

differences between the evaluated programs. In particular, the three

programs served different populations of teenage mothers: LEAP served

both students and dropouts, and was less successful with dropouts; New

Chance and Jobstart served only high-school dropouts. It is possible that

the less extensive LEAP services may not be successful with young women

who have already been out of school for some time. On the other hand,

many of the social services offered by programs like New Chance are

aimed not so much toward helping these teenagers complete high school

as toward improving their parenting behavior and breaking the

intergenerational cycle of poverty.

11In addition, LEAP participants in Cleveland, as well as the control group, had access to special

instruction and services through their high school. The effects of providing additional case

management services were examined in a separate study.

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We are unable to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the

individual services offered in these programs because there were no

independent tests of their contribution to the effects of each program as a

whole. Each evaluation provides evidence only on the impact of the

services as they were delivered, that is, in a package with monitoring and

follow-up. The small number of programs evaluated offered a limited

range of variation and thus limits our ability to examine such effects.

Additional Approaches to

Helping Teenage Mothers

In addition to the approaches taken in the programs included in our

evaluation synthesis, the programs we visited provided examples of

innovative approaches to helping teenage mothers complete their high

school education that are quite different from those evaluated. These

approaches included the use of alternative schools; residential programs;

home-based programs; and school-based programs that provided services

to all teenagers in the school, not just those who were pregnant or

parenting.

Alternative Schools Bridge

Student and Parent Roles

Alternative schools provide an opportunity for teenage mothers to

continue their education in a setting that also actively supports their role

as a parent. We visited two such programs: the Teen Parent Academy in El

Paso and New Futures in Albuquerque. Both schools provided a wide

range of on-site services to support pregnant and parenting teenagers.

Although a student could choose to return to a regular high school after

the birth of her child, she could also continue at the alternative school,

which provided on-site child care and a range of other services to enable

teenagers to continue their education while raising a child. Parenting

education classes at the Academy taught skills vital to young teenagers in

their multiple roles of child, student, parent, and future employee. New

Futures had on-site prenatal and perinatal clinics for teenagers, and all

students participated in child development classes. Students were required

to work in the child care centers as part of their curriculum, and pregnant

teenagers were to take a personal and child health care class. The school

district provided transportation for students and their children, and

counselors were available for individual counseling.

Residential Programs Offered

Refuge and Structure

In some cases, programs have been developed to deal with the very

serious, if not widespread, problem of homelessness among teenage

mothers. In Albuquerque, homelessness was identified as a reason that

some teenage mothers were unable to continue their high school

education. In response, a teenage parent residence was developed. In

addition, the El Paso Transitional Living Program aimed to enable

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homeless young women to remain with their children as well as to

strengthen their ability to become self-sufficient. Transitional housing for

teenage mothers and their children was one component of the Teenage

Services Act (TASA)12 program in Syracuse, New York: Families could

remain there for 2 to 3 years, or until they became self-sufficient. These

programs offered more than just shelter. They provided a variety of

support services designed to assist the teenager in obtaining a high school

diploma or GED; on-site counselors to monitor the residents’ activities; and

rules with severe consequences for breaking them, including eviction from

the residence.

Home Visits Attempted to Serve

the Entire Family

Two programs used home visits to ensure that teenage mothers received

the services that they needed to continue their education. The Addison

County Parent/Child Center served a rural population. Professional staff

visited families in their homes to determine what help might be needed,

giving priority to pregnant teenagers, young mothers, extended families of

teenage parents, families with handicapped children, and families with

abused and neglected children.

Home visiting was the centerpiece of Milwaukee’s Time of Your Life

Program, an intergenerational program for teenage mothers and their

families. The Time of Your Life approach reflected the staff’s belief that

since most of their teenage mothers came from multigeneration AFDC

families and continued to live at home, the teenage mothers’ problems

could not be addressed without educating and supporting the entire family

unit. A prenatal community nurse and a family therapist visited clients in

their homes, developing a unique program for each client that involved the

entire family, then attempted to link the families to the appropriate

services. Individual teenagers and their families signed contracts saying

that the teenager would complete school and that all concerned would

provide a loving and healthy environment for the teenager and her baby.

This attempt to directly involve the family is meant to overcome what

program staff referred to as welfare families’ frequent “sabotage” of

teenage mothers’ efforts to complete school and find work.

Schools Offered Services to

Teenage Mothers as Part of a

Larger Program to Serve All

At-Risk Students

The statewide New Jersey School-Based Youth Services Program was

designed to serve all teenagers, not just teenage parents. It aimed to

prevent, and where needed, address the problems facing many of them,

including unemployment, the break-up of families, suicide, drug and

alcohol abuse, alienation from school possibly leading to dropping out of

12TASA is New York State legislation that requires AFDC teenage mothers to be offered case

management.

Page 16 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

school, and unplanned pregnancy. The program emphasized early

intervention, family involvement, and the provision of comprehensive

services at a single, accessible setting. While the program was

school-based, a wide range of community resources supported each local

site, and in fact were required in order to receive state funds.

In addition, three SBYSP sites we visited created special programs for their

teenage parents. In two of the three sites, the teenage parenting program

provided on-site child care, in addition to the other services necessary to

keep pregnant and parenting teenagers in school. This included life skills

and parenting training, mentors who provided moral support, and other

community volunteers who were once teenage mothers themselves.

Further, Plainfield used its on-site child care center as a tool to provide the

teenage parents with the information and support they needed to assist

them in their parenting role. To have access to this child care center,

teenage mothers had to maintain at least a “C” average, perform

community service, participate in case management and support services,

and not have another child. Finally, teenagers in SBYSP were encouraged to

use the available resources in the community, many of which could be

accessed through the program.

AFDC Offices Met

FSA Requirements,

but Most Did Not

Monitor All Teenagers

The city welfare officials we spoke with told us that they required certain

teenage AFDC recipients to continue their high school education and

referred high-school dropouts to the JOBS program for continuing

education. But most AFDC/JOBS offices did not take the additional step of

monitoring the attendance of young AFDC mothers who were attending

high school or those who were under age 16 (and thus exempted).

Programs in three cities stood out, however, because they monitored and

followed up on the educational activities of all their teenage mothers on

welfare, even if they were still attending high school when they applied for

AFDC.

Most Young Mothers Were

Not Monitored Unless

They Dropped Out of High

School

All 15 of the city welfare offices we surveyed reported requiring teenage

mothers, aged 16 through 19, who were on AFDC and had not completed

high school to participate in educational activities aimed at a high school

diploma or GED.

13 When teenage mothers who had already dropped out of

school applied for AFDC benefits, the welfare offices referred them to the

JOBS program to continue their education. (However, not all of these

13One city reported exempting all teenagers with children under the age of 3 from the participation

requirement, which conflicts with the requirement that all teenagers without a high school education

participate (regardless of the age of their child).

Page 17 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

dropouts necessarily participated in educational activities, because

localities sometimes lacked resources to serve all those referred to JOBS.)

JOBS participants—including those in high school who volunteered for JOBS

to obtain child care or transportation assistance—were generally

monitored on a monthly basis. If they failed to attend classes, or, in some

cases, did not make satisfactory progress, we were told, case managers

intervened to find out why. The case managers attempted to identify the

problem and to provide the services or link the teenagers with the services

necessary to enable them to continue their education. If there was no

justifiable explanation for a teenage mother’s failure to attend school, she

was threatened with a sanction—a reduction in the amount of her monthly

AFDC benefit. However, city AFDC and JOBS officials told us that few teenage

mothers actually had their benefits reduced, since most complied with the

attendance requirements as a result of the sanctioning process and the

case managers’ intervention.

On the other hand, when teenage mothers who were enrolled in high

school applied for AFDC benefits, they were exempted from participation in

JOBS. In most cities, once these teenage mothers were exempted from JOBS,

the AFDC office paid no further attention to their education until 6 months

had passed and their eligibility for AFDC was being reverified. These

teenage mothers could have dropped out of school at any time during

those 6 months, and months could have elapsed before AFDC discovered

they had dropped out. Once identified as dropouts, these teenage mothers

would be referred to JOBS and, depending on resources, might participate

in educational activities.

Further, teenage mothers under the age of 16, admittedly a small

proportion of welfare recipients, are exempted by FSA from requirements

that states compel them to attend school as a condition of receiving AFDC

benefits. However, 3 cities—Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles—of

15 that we surveyed reported routine monitoring of the school attendance

of mothers that young. These three cities are part of special waiver

programs—LEAP, Learnfare, and Cal-Learn, respectively.

A Few Programs

Monitored Education of All

Teenage AFDC Recipients

Only three of the city welfare offices we interviewed routinely monitored

the school attendance of teenage mothers who were still attending high

school when they applied for AFDC. These AFDC offices stood out because

they monitored and followed up on the educational activities of all their

teenage mothers on welfare: Cleveland participated in Ohio’s LEAP program

(previously discussed); Milwaukee participated in Wisconsin’s Learnfare

Page 18 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

program; and Los Angeles became part of the Cal-Learn demonstration

project in 1995.14

Like LEAP, participation in Cal-Learn and Learnfare was mandatory for all

teenage mothers on welfare who did not have a high school diploma,

whether they were attending school or had dropped out. Dropouts were

required either to return to high school or to attend a GED preparation

program. Each program monitored attendance routinely, but these

programs differed in their use of rewards and sanctions and in whether

they offered case management services before applying sanctions. The

Cleveland demonstration of the LEAP program operated like the statewide

program, but also provided case management and supportive services for

teenage parents with recurrent attendance problems.

California’s Cal-Learn program used financial incentives and sanctions to

reward attendance and academic achievement and also provided case

management and supportive services. A welfare family with a teenage

parent or parents might receive up to four $100 bonuses in a 12-month

period for each teenage parent who maintained a C average or better, or,

conversely, up to four $100 reductions in its AFDC benefit for each teenage

parent who failed to make adequate progress. Cal-Learn also provided a

$500 bonus for high school completion.

Wisconsin’s statewide Learnfare program coordinated with the public

schools to monitor the attendance of all teenagers on AFDC but used only

sanctions, not rewards. When receiving notice of a possible reduction in

benefits, a teenage mother on welfare would also be offered case

management to help her overcome barriers to school attendance. If her

attendance still did not improve, her benefits were reduced.

A provision in the House welfare reform proposal regarding teenagers and

AFDC could, if passed, affect these three states’ programs for teenage

mothers on welfare, by denying cash benefits to mothers under age 18.

However, a possible similar approach could be to monitor these younger

teenagers’ attendance and use noncash benefits such as child care and

transportation assistance to reward satisfactory attendance. Further, it is

unclear whether these three AFDC offices would continue to monitor the

attendance of teenage mothers 18 years and older if certain provisions to

strengthen work program requirements were enacted. These provisions

would raise work program participation goals and no longer permit states

14Los Angeles and Milwaukee are demonstration sites for statewide programs and have only

preliminary or no impact results as yet.

Page 19 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

to count a parent’s high school attendance as participation in a work

program unless the parent also was employed. Because a state would not

gain credit for teenagers enrolled solely in a secondary school, it might be

dissuaded from spending money on programs to monitor and follow up on

their attendance.

Conclusions A variety of local programs aim to help teenage mothers avoid welfare

dependence through completing their secondary education. Our analysis

suggests that close monitoring of teenage mothers’ educational activities

with follow-up, when their attendance drops, is effective in increasing the

likelihood that they complete their education. Leveraging the welfare

benefit as a sanction or reward for attendance has contributed to high

school completion for teenage mothers attending school. Providing

supportive services to overcome barriers to continued attendance, with or

without financial incentives, also seems to be effective, especially for

dropouts. Finally, assistance in meeting their child care and transportation

needs may be particularly helpful but did not appear to be sufficient,

without attendance monitoring, to enable these young mothers to

complete their secondary education.

Although current federal AFDC policy emphasizes the importance of

teenage mothers’ participation in the JOBS program, it does not require

states to serve all teenage mothers in JOBS, nor does it require states to

monitor the school attendance of all teenage mothers on AFDC. This was

confirmed by local welfare officials who indicated that teenagers’

attendance is not monitored, nor are they referred to JOBS, unless they

have already dropped out of school. A preventive strategy of monitoring

the attendance of all teenagers, such as that observed in LEAP, was

reported in only 3 of the 15 cities we surveyed. These three AFDC offices

coordinate with educational providers to ensure that welfare benefits are

contingent on teenagers’ continuing their education.

The Congress is currently deliberating several reforms to the welfare

system, including whether to provide benefits to teenage mothers.

Although our work shows that a number of approaches can work to help

teenage mothers complete high school, whether states will use these

approaches will likely be influenced by the final form of the legislation.

Agency Comments The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), within the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, commented on a draft of this

Page 20 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

report and generally agreed with our conclusions about promising

program approaches, but expressed several concerns.

First, ACF claimed that our evaluation synthesis was not a statistically

rigorous methodology, given the small number of studies reviewed.

Because the evaluated programs were too dissimilar to be aggregated for a

statistical analysis, we employed the evaluation synthesis method, which

is not intended to yield statistically significant conclusions. Although it

may not provide conclusive answers, this analysis did show that certain

factors were consistently associated with positive educational outcomes,

while others were not. Second, ACF believed that we should more

prominently discuss the difference between voluntary and mandatory

programs. However, this characteristic did not distinguish between

programs that did and did not increase school completions. Third, ACF

asked us to clarify that the limitation on work program participation

requirements would not apply to teenagers if they were excluded from

receiving cash benefits. The text has been changed to clarify this. Fourth,

ACF pointed out that the education system also bears responsibility for

helping teenage parents complete school. We agree, but examination of

this issue was outside the scope of this report. Fifth, ACF believed that we

should note that the follow-up periods for these evaluations were too short

to see employment and earnings impacts. We do recognize and discuss this

issue in explaining the focus of our analysis on school completions (see

p. 6). Finally, although ACF believed that we had failed to cite the latest

report on the Teenage Parent Demonstration program, the report referred

to was included in our evaluation synthesis (see p. 40, Maynard,

Nicholson, and Rangarajan, 1993). In addition, ACF provided detailed

suggestions, which we have incorporated as appropriate throughout the

text. ACF’s comments are reprinted in appendix III.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents

earlier, we will not distribute this report until 30 days after the date of this

letter. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretary of Health and

Human Services and other interested parties. We will also make copies

available to others on request.

Page 21 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
B-259612 

Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV. If you have any

questions concerning this report or need additional information, please

call Jane L. Ross on (202) 512-7215.

Jane L. Ross

Director, Income Security Issues

Joseph F. Delfico

Acting Assistant Comptroller General for

 Program Evaluation and Methodology

Page 22 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Page 23 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Contents

Letter 1

Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis

Methodology

26

Search for and Selection of Studies 26

Quality Review of Evaluation Studies 27

Synthesis of Program Evaluation Results 28

Strengths and Limitations of This Analysis 30

Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

31

New Chance 31

Jobstart 31

Learning, Earning, and Parenting 32

Project Redirection 33

Teenage Parent Demonstration 34

Appendix III 

Comments From the

Department of Health

and Human Services

36

Appendix IV 

GAO Contacts and

Staff

Acknowledgments

39

Bibliography 40

Related GAO Products 44

Table Table 1: Components of the Five Programs With Impact

Evaluations

9

Figures Figure 1: Birth Rate for Unmarried Teenage Mothers, Aged 15-19,

1960-92

4

Figure 2: Services Provided by Innovative Programs to Support

High School Completion

11

Page 24 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Contents

Abbreviations

ACF Administration for Children and Families

AFDC Aid to Families With Dependent Children

FSA Family Support Act of 1988

GED General Educational Development certificate

JOBS Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training

LEAP Learning, Earning, and Parenting

MDRC Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation

SBYSP School-Based Youth Services Program

TASA Teenage Services Act

TPD Teenage Parent Demonstration

Page 25 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis Methodology

To assist us in identifying promising approaches for helping teenage

mothers achieve economic independence, we conducted an evaluation

synthesis—a systematic review and analysis of the results of previous

evaluation studies of programs sharing this goal. Whereas some evaluation

syntheses examine similar studies to learn whether a single program or

treatment consistently has the desired effect, this synthesis examined

programs that used a range of different approaches toward the same goal

to learn which approaches were successful in achieving that goal.

The evaluation synthesis consisted of several steps. The first step was

locating programs serving teenage mothers, and screening them to identify

rigorous impact studies with reliable results on the desired outcomes. In

the second step, we identified the commonalities and differences among

the programs and assessed whether these were related to whether the

programs demonstrated the desired impacts. From this analysis, we drew

conclusions from the cumulative picture of existing rigorous research

about which approaches have been demonstrated to be successful in

assisting these young women. In addition, we asked evaluators of these

programs to review our analysis and characterization of the programs and

their evaluations. We incorporated their comments where appropriate,

including unpublished evaluation findings provided by one of the

reviewers.

Search for and

Selection of Studies

We began our search for relevant studies by identifying as many existing

evaluation impact studies as possible of programs serving disadvantaged

teenage mothers. We conducted computerized bibliographic searches of

the literature on disadvantaged teenage mothers (using keywords such as

adolescents and early parenthood) in periodicals on education,

psychology, sociology, and program evaluation. Program summaries and

bibliographies of research studies were reviewed to identify other studies

that might have been missed. We also contacted external experts

regarding important studies to consider. From hundreds of citations, we

selected over 50 for further review.

Our criteria for selecting studies for our synthesis were that:

• the program served young mothers under the age of 20, or provided

separate data on them if it served a broader group;

• the evaluation measured education, employment, or AFDC receipt as

outcomes; and

Page 26 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis Methodology

• there was some form of comparison with nonparticipants (but not

necessarily a control group).

These criteria excluded programs that focused exclusively on teenagers’

health outcomes and repeat pregnancies, and many school-based

programs without impact evaluations. After applying these criteria, we

arrived at a group of eight studies designed either especially for teenage

parents or for disadvantaged teenagers in general.

Quality Review of

Evaluation Studies

We rated the quality of the eight studies to ensure that the research was

rigorous and would produce reliable results. We used six specific criteria

that together would reflect the rigor, consistency, and reliability of an

evaluation study.15 These criteria are as follows:

• similarity of the comparison group to the project’s clients,

• adequacy of the sample size for the analyses performed,

• standardization of data collection procedures,

• appropriateness of the measures used to represent the outcome variables,

• adequacy of the statistical or other methods used to control for threats to

validity, and

• presence and appropriateness of the methods used to analyze the

statistical significance of observed differences.

Each study was rated on a three-point scale from “unacceptable” (because

the report provided no information on the dimension or the method was

so flawed that the data were probably wrong) to “acceptable,” indicating

an appropriate method was used or that attempts were made to minimize

problems.

Results of Quality Review In general, most of these programs had well-designed and rigorously

implemented evaluations with experimental or quasiexperimental designs.

Five of the eight evaluations met our criteria. We identified problems in

three evaluations (Learnfare, the Teenage Services Act program (TASA),

and Young Families Can Programs) that were serious enough to question

the reliability of their results, and thus we did not include these

evaluations in our synthesis.

15See GAO/PEMD-10.1.2, p. 31. Another GAO report used a similar set of dimensions: Teenage

Pregnancy: 500,000 Births a Year But Few Tested Programs (GAO/PEMD-86-16BR, July 21, 1986), p. 34.

Page 27 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis Methodology

The five evaluations selected for our synthesis were Project New Chance;

Jobstart; the Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) program; Project

Redirection; and the Teenage Parent Demonstration (TPD). A confounding

factor found in two of the programs was the similarity in services received

by the program participants and the comparison group (as a result of their

availability elsewhere in the community). This type of confounding factor

means that the standard measure of program impact—the difference

between outcomes for the two groups—will most likely underestimate the

program’s true impact relative to receiving no services.

Overview of Programs All five of the selected programs served teenage mothers, most of whom

were receiving AFDC benefits, and encouraged them to complete their

education before seeking employment. These programs operated in the

1980s in multiple sites, although LEAP operated in only one state. All

programs provided child care and transportation or reimbursed their

costs. Each program offered basic education, but most also offered

vocational preparation or training. Some programs required mandatory

participation; others were voluntary. Some served primarily young,

first-time mothers (aged 14 to 17), whereas others served older teenage

mothers (19 to 22 years old), and one served other young men and women

as well. The programs delivered services in different ways—sequentially or

concurrently, on-site and off-site, and brokered services (linked services to

participants) or provided services directly to participants.

Synthesis of Program

Evaluation Results

To develop a cumulative picture about which approaches were successful

in increasing the economic self-sufficiency of teenage mothers, we first

identified the impacts each program had achieved and then compared the

programs’ characteristics and results with each other.

Determining Individual

Study Impacts

The impacts we focused on for the evaluation synthesis were directly

related to economic self-sufficiency: employment, public assistance

receipt, and school completion measured as receipt of a high school

diploma or GED. For each outcome in each study, we compared the results

of the participants receiving program services (treatment group) with

those of the control (or comparison) group, and any differences were

deemed to be program impacts. The evaluation reports estimated the

likelihood that these differences were due to random chance using

standard tests of statistical significance.16 For our interpretation, we used

16The bibliography lists the program and evaluation reports used for our review.

Page 28 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis Methodology

a common significance level of 5 percent (.05) or less, which was stricter

than that used by some of the evaluations.

Synthesis of Results

Across Studies

We used a structured approach to look for program features or

characteristics that might explain why some programs had positive

impacts and others did not, on each of the desired outcomes. For example,

we looked for features that were common, yet unique, to the three

programs with positive outcomes on educational attainment. First, we

compared the programs’ results by the general program approach they

represented: education, training, and comprehensive services. We then

compared them along more detailed single features that were discussed in

the literature as being important for serving this population. These

features included the set of services provided; whether the program

created services specially tailored to the needs of teens, such as an

alternative school; whether participation was mandatory or voluntary; the

age group served; and service delivery method used. We also examined

features of the studies themselves that might influence the likelihood of

demonstrating statistically significant results, such as whether the

comparison group received services similar to those provided by the

program. The synthesis entailed comparing program features of the

programs with positive outcomes, and contrasting them with the features

of the other programs without positive outcomes, excluding those studies

with no data on that particular outcome. Thus, for example, we also

looked for similarities and differences in features within the set of

comprehensive service programs.

After we found no single unique program feature, we looked beyond

individual program features to combinations that might explain the

results. We reviewed the comments of the evaluators about any problems

encountered in program or study implementation. We considered not only

which services were delivered and how, but how they might influence the

participants and their behavior. All of the programs monitored program

participation, but we noted that one of the programs with no school

completion gains, Project Redirection, had problems with school

absenteeism. This led us to discover that the other three programs with

positive impacts on school completion monitored attendance instead of

just enrollment or participation, and that all three also followed up on the

results of that monitoring.

Page 29 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix I 

Evaluation Synthesis Methodology

Strengths and

Limitations of This

Analysis

Looking across the studies gave us the opportunity to uncover information

not readily seen by looking at only one of them. Including several program

approaches in our review allowed us to see that while a particular

approach can be successful, it is not the only successful approach. Nor do

single studies ordinarily allow one to make inferences about which of the

variety of program components were probably responsible for its observed

effects, while examining patterns across a group of studies may. However,

a sample of five studies cannot provide conclusive answers, since many

potential differences between them might be related to why one program

had significant results and another did not. Because only three of the

studies had longer-term data on employment and AFDC receipt, we had

insufficient data to identify features distinguishing success on these

longer-term outcomes.

Page 30 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

New Chance This voluntary, multisite (16 sites in 10 states)17 demonstration focused on

the well-being of school dropout teenage mothers (aged 16 to 22) as well

as their children. New Chance provided 20 to 30 hours per week of basic

skills, high school diploma, or GED preparation in an initial phase and job

skills training afterward. Local community organizations offered a

one-stop, drop-in center where participants also received life skills and

parenting classes; workshops on family planning and substance abuse;

counseling, child care (often free and on-site), and transportation; and

intense case management monitoring and assistance. Skill training, work

internships, job placement assistance (offered later), and health services

were often provided off-site. Participants could remain in the program for

up to 18 months, but the average length of stay was about 8 months.

The New Chance evaluation used an experimental design with a randomly

assigned control group, but many members of the control group received

similar services from other providers in the community. The evaluation

also reported problems with participants leaving the program (dropping

out) after the educational component (even when program providers

worked to keep them involved) and thus not getting employment-related

services in the later phase of the program.

The New Chance evaluation reported educational enrollment and school

completion gains after 1 and 1-1/2 years, but had no statistically significant

employment gains or AFDC reductions in this short term.18 It also measured

many other outcomes in areas such as parenting, family planning, life

skills, and health status. Positive effects on the mother’s democratic style

of disciplining and raising a child were reported. But the evaluation

reported negative effects on reducing subsequent pregnancies;

participants were actually more likely to become pregnant again.

Jobstart This voluntary job training program at 13 sites,19 run by local community

colleges or employment-oriented organizations, served disadvantaged

teenagers aged 17 to 21 who had dropped out of school, including

substantial numbers of teenage mothers. It linked teenagers to

occupational training and to training-related employment, as well as

provided training in-house. Sites often provided support services to

17New Chance sites operated in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota,

New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

18Statistical significance was measured at the .05 level, which was the standard we used.

19Jobstart sites were located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, New York,

Pennsylvania, and Texas.

Page 31 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

facilitate participation (such as lunch or clothing money), and directly

provided individualized self-paced GED instruction. The average stay in the

program was 7 months (even though the program could last 1-1/2 years),

so some participants might not have been in the program long enough to

get much beyond their GED certificate.

This evaluation used an experimental design with control groups and

reported no major problems with control group comparability or

participation rates. It reported data separately on teenage mother

participants, thus allowing comparison with our other programs.

The program reported educational enrollment and school completion

gains at 4 years after program entry, but no employment gains or AFDC

benefit reductions. The program did not provide family planning services,

and participants experienced more subsequent pregnancies than the

control group over the 4 years following the start of the program.

Concerning the other participants, the program also reported school

completion gains programwide, earnings increases for young men who

had been arrested, and lower rates of AFDC receipt among young women

who had not been mothers or who were not living with their children at

program entry.

Learning, Earning,

and Parenting

This ongoing mandatory program enforces school attendance for all

pregnant or parenting teens (under 20 years old) who do not have a high

school diploma or GED and are receiving AFDC in the state of Ohio. It

provides incentives and sanctions to attend school (increases and

decreases in their AFDC benefits) and reimbursement for child care and

transportation.20 Welfare offices obtain information from the public

schools to monitor school attendance, note absences (excused and

unexcused), and apply sanctions or incentives as appropriate. When

needed, a case manager reimburses teenagers for child care or

transportation costs, and in some locales has regular personal contact

with a subset of teenagers. Program participation ends when the

participant reaches age 19 or receives a high school diploma.

There have been two evaluations of this program. The evaluation of the

statewide program used an experimental design with a randomly assigned

control group and was based on a subset of randomly selected counties in

20Originally the program intended to guarantee summer jobs for all participants, but the program later

simply encouraged participation in the Job Training Partnership Act’s summer job program.

Page 32 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

Ohio.21 A second evaluation provided long-term follow-up on a subset of

the statewide program (Cleveland only) and an evaluation of a special

demonstration offering additional services. A recently published

evaluation reported the long-term results for both the Cleveland subset

and the special demonstration.22

The statewide evaluation reported improved educational enrollment and

attendance as well as increased GED completions after 1-1/2 years. But it

had no information on high school graduations, nor did it separately note

the GED results for those who were in school and for those who had

already dropped out by the time they entered LEAP. The evaluation of the

long-term Cleveland data showed increases over 3 years in GED or high

school completions (but not for GED completions alone) for those who

were in school on program entry, but not for school dropouts. The

program did help dropouts return to school or an educational program. It

did not, however, result in getting even a majority of teenage mothers into

school, and only a small portion received their diploma or GED. Neither

employment nor AFDC benefits were measured by these evaluations.

In addition, the second evaluation assessed the addition of dropout

prevention and truancy reduction services for selected participants in

Cleveland.23 The study resulted in school completion gains over 3 years,

but the comparison of the basic LEAP program with the

LEAP-plus-additional-services program was inconclusive since many

participants never received the extra services.

Project Redirection This voluntary program, with sites in Boston; New York City; Phoenix; and

Riverside, California, served young teens (aged 14 to 17) receiving AFDC,

about half of whom were not attending school. While its approach was

comprehensive, it mainly linked participants to existing services. It offered

employment and basic skills training (mostly off-site), while a drop-in

center provided individual counseling, pregnancy prevention, and

parenting and life skills workshops after classes. Its unique characteristic

21See Dan Bloom, Veronica Fellerath, David Long, and Robert G. Wood, LEAP: Interim Findings on a

Welfare Initiative to Improve School Attendance Among Teenage Parents (New York: Manpower

Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), May 1993). MDRC’s final LEAP evaluation report is

expected to provide both high school and GED completions, and may include data from all 12 counties

studied.

22See David Long, Robert G. Wood, and Hillary Kopp, LEAP: The Educational Effects of LEAP and

Enhanced Services in Cleveland (New York: MDRC, Oct. 1994).

23For a discussion of the effects of extra dropout prevention services (such as on-site child care, case

management, and parenting and life skills classes), plus community-based outreach services in

Cleveland, see Long, Wood, and Kopp, 1994.

Page 33 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

was the use of community women who provided mentoring and

friendship. Participants could remain in the program for up to 18 months,

or until the participant reached 19 years old or received a GED, whichever

came first; the average stay was 12 months.

The quasiexperimental evaluation used comparison groups of teenagers

from different cities, raising the possibility that existing differences

between these groups (and not program participation) could account for

some of the differences in their outcomes. In addition, the program also

had difficulties carrying out the research as planned: the comparison

group members received similar services in their communities, and

program participation as well as school absenteeism was a problem. The

program did not routinely monitor program or school attendance.

The program realized school enrollment gains after 1 year, but no school

completion gains after 1, 2, and 5 years. It was one of the few programs

that measured long-term impacts, but it had no statistically significant

employment gains or reduction in AFDC benefits. The results of parenting

education were measured in more positive home environment and positive

child development scores. After 5 years, it reported increased subsequent

pregnancies.

Teenage Parent

Demonstration

The Teenage Parent Demonstration (TPD) program24 is a mandatory

program with 3 sites (in Chicago and Newark and Camden, New Jersey). It

required first-time parents (under age 19) receiving AFDC to enroll in

education, training, or employment activities. The program, which was run

by the local welfare office, sanctioned those who did not enroll in

activities by reducing their AFDC benefits. Case management, some

educational services, and workshops on parenting, survival skills, and

family planning were provided on-site. The program offered services for

the length of the evaluation (almost 4 years) until age 20, and reimbursed

child care and transportation expenses, with all participants receiving

services for at least 1-1/2 years.

The evaluation used an experimental design with control groups. The

program reported good enrollment rates but periods of inactivity (failure

to attend activities) of up to 6 months for some individuals, which suggests

that some participants did not receive the intended treatment.

24TPD is also referred to as the Teenage Parent Welfare Demonstration.

Page 34 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix II 

Program Descriptions

The program aimed to change enrollment or participation rates (in school,

training or a job) and was successful in doing so (participation rates were

over 90 percent), but it had no significant school completion gains.25 It was

the only program to have significant impacts on employment and AFDC

receipt. Although participants experienced increased earnings and

reductions in average AFDC benefits after 2 years, there was no significant

change in their poverty status. Further, the incidence of subsequent births

did not change significantly.

25Results on school completions were obtained from a limited availability paper by Rebecca Maynard,

Walter Nicholson, and Anu Rangarajan, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: The Effectiveness of Mandatory

Services for Welfare-Dependent Teenage Parents, prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services, Contract #HHS-100-86-0045 (Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.,

Dec. 1993).

Page 35 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Health

and Human Services

Page 36 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Health

and Human Services

Now on p. 7.

Page 37 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Health

and Human Services

Page 38 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Appendix IV 

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contacts Lynne Fender, Assistant Director, HEHS, (202) 512-7229

Stephanie Shipman, Assistant Director, PEMD, (202) 512-5885

Acknowledgments The following team members made important contributions to this report:

Margaret Boeckmann, Senior Social Science Analyst, was the team leader;

Elaine Vaurio, Social Science Analyst, was the project manager for the

evaluation synthesis; Rathi Bose, Vernette Shaw, and Lois Shoemaker,

Evaluators, conducted site visits and prepared work papers; Gale Harris,

Senior Evaluator, provided advice throughout the development of the

report; and Nancy Crothers, Senior Evaluator, provided writing assistance.

Page 39 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Bibliography

Reports on the Five

Programs Reviewed

Bloom, Dan, Veronica Fellerath, David Long, and Robert G. Wood. LEAP:

Interim Findings on a Welfare Initiative to Improve School Attendance

Among Teenage Parents. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research

Corporation, May 1993.

Cave, George, Hans Bos, Fred Doolittle, and Cyril Toussaint. JOBSTART:

Final Report on a Program for School Dropouts. New York: Manpower

Demonstration Research Corporation, Oct. 1993.

Hershey, Alan. Enrolling Teenaged AFDC Parents in Mandatory Education

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Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Dec. 1991.

Long, David, Robert G. Wood, and Hilary Kopp. LEAP: The Educational

Effects of LEAP and Enhanced Services in Cleveland. New York: Manpower

Demonstration Research Corporation, Oct. 1994.

Maynard, Rebecca, ed. Building Self-Sufficiency Among WelfareDependent Teenaged Parents: Lessons From the Teenage Parent

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June 1993.

Maynard, Rebecca, Walter Nicholson, and Anu Rangarajan. Breaking the

Cycle of Poverty: The Effectiveness of Mandatory Services for

Welfare-Dependent Teenage Parents. Prepared for the U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services, Contract # HHS-100-86-0045. Princeton, N.J.:

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Dec. 1993.

Maynard, Rebecca, Denise Polit, Alan Hershey, John Homrighausen, Ellen

Kisker, Myles Maxfield, Charles Nagatoshi, Walter Nicholson, and Shari

Dunstan. The Evaluation Design for the Teenaged Parent Demonstration.

Prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Contract

# HHS-100-86-0045. Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.,

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Polit, Denise, and Janet R. Kahn. “Project Redirection: Evaluation of a

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Polit, Denise, Janet R. Kahn, and David Stevens. Final Impacts From

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Polit, Denise, Janet C. Quint, and James A. Riccio. The Challenge of

Serving Teenage Mothers: Lessons from Project Redirection. New York:

Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, Oct. 1988.

Polit, Denise, and Cozette Morrow White. The Lives of Young

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May 1988.

Quint, Janet C. “Project Redirection: Making and Measuring a Difference.”

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Implementing a Comprehensive Program for Disadvantaged Young

Mothers and Their Children. New York: Manpower Demonstration

Research Corporation, Dec. 1991.

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Burke, Vee. Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Program: Basic

Facts. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. 94-282 EPW,

Mar. 30, 1994.

Corbett, Thomas. “Changing the Culture of Welfare.” Focus, 16:2 (Winter

1995), pp. 12-21.

Granger, Robert C. “The Policy Implications of Recent Findings From the

New Chance Demonstration, Ohio’s Learning, Earning, and Parenting

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Gueron, Judith, and Edward Pauly. From Welfare to Work. New York:

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Gwat-Yong Lie and Robert Moroney. “A Controlled Evaluation of

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Research on Social Work Practice, 2:4 (Oct. 1992), pp. 429-46.

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Kisker, Ellen, and Marsha Silverberg. “Child Care Utilization by

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159-77.

Marsh, Jeanne C., ed. “Special Issue: Services to Teenage Parents.”

Evaluation and Program Planning, 14:1/2 (1991).

Maynard, Rebecca. “The Effectiveness of Interventions Aimed at Reducing

the Incidence of Teenage Pregnancy and Mitigating the Consequence of

Early Childbearing.” Paper presented at Annual Meeting of Association for

Public Policy and Management, Chicago, Oct. 27-29, 1994.

New York State Department of Social Services, Office of Program

Planning, Analysis & Development and Division of Family & Children

Services. Evaluation of the Teenage Services Act Program (TASA). Albany:

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Nickel, Phyliss S., and Holly Delany. Working With Teen Parents: A Survey

of Promising Approaches. Family Focus, Inc., Chicago: Family Resource

Coalition, 1985.

Rudd, Nancy, Patrick McHenry, and Myungkyun Nah. “Welfare Receipt

Among Black and White Adolescent Mothers.” Journal of Family Issues,

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The Center for Population Options. Teenage Pregnancy and Too-Early

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University of Southern California School of Social Work. California’s

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Management Services for Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents. Final

report, Aug. 1990.

Page 43 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
Related GAO Products

Welfare to Work: State Programs Have Tested Some of the Proposed

Reforms (GAO/PEMD-95-26, July 14, 1995).

Welfare to Work: Current AFDC Program Not Sufficiently Focused on

Employment (GAO/HEHS-95-28, Dec. 19, 1994).

Families on Welfare: Teenage Mothers Least Likely to Become

Self-Sufficient (GAO/HEHS-94-115, May 31, 1994).

Families on Welfare: Focus on Teenage Mothers Could Enhance Welfare

Reform Efforts (GAO/HEHS-94-112, May 31, 1994).

Welfare to Work: States Move Unevenly to Serve Teen Parents in JOBS

(GAO/HRD-93-74, July 7, 1993).

The Evaluation Synthesis (GAO/PEMD-10.1.2, Mar. 1992).

Teenage Pregnancy: 500,000 Births a Year but Few Tested Programs

(GAO/PEMD-86-16BR, July 21, 1986).

(105592) Page 44 GAO/HEHS/PEMD-95-202 Teenage Mothers on Welfare
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