Examining Career and Technical Education in National Guard Youth Challenge Programs
Abstract
The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for youth ages 16 to 18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. This report examines a specific aspect of this program: the provision of career and technical education (CTE) opportunities for program participants. The report relies on administrative data collected from all programs pertaining to their operations in 2017 and 2018, as well as interviews with select program staff in 2019. In this report, we highlight promising practices in CTE provision found in the literature. We look at data reported from ChalleNGe sites during 2017 and 2018 on cadet participation in CTE and compare them with information from another nationwide program that serves at-risk youth. Finally, we examine the extent to which promising practices in CTE are found in a handful of National Guard Youth ChalleNGe sites. Methods used in this study include a document review; descriptive analysis of the administrative data that the RAND Corporation research team collected from all ChalleNGe sites on enrollment, completion, credits earned, certificates and other credentials earned, and other program-level information; and phone calls with staff from a handful of ChalleNGe sites implementing CTE. This report will be of interest to ChalleNGe program leadership and staff. This report could also be of interest to policymakers, youth-serving providers and educators, and researchers concerned with integrating job skills in the design of youth interventions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1172326
Entities
People
- Joy S. Moini
- Louay Constant
- Nicholas Broten
- Robert Bozick
Organizations
- RAND Corporation