Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs

Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs PDF Author: Charles F. Manski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674270176
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Almost everyone would like to see the enactment of sound, practical measures to help disadvantaged people get off welfare and find jobs at decent wages, and over the past quarter-century federal and state governments have struggled to develop just such programs. How do we know whether they are having the hoped-for effect? How do we know whether these vast outlays of money are helping the people they are designed to reach? All welfare and training programs have been subject to professional evaluations, including social experiments and demonstrations designed to test new ideas. This book reviews what we have discovered from past assessments and suggests how welfare and training programs should be planned for the 1990s. The authors of this volume, each a recognized expert in the evaluation of social programs, do more than summarize what we have learned so far. They clarify why the issue of the proper conduct and interpretation of evaluations has itself been a subject of continuing controversy. In part, the problem is organizational, requiring the integrated efforts of social scientists, public officials, and the professionals who execute evaluations. In addition, there is a dispute about scientific method: should evaluators try to understand the complex social processes that make programs succeed (or fail), or should they focus on inputs and outputs, treating the programs themselves as "black boxes" whose machinery remains hidden? Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs will be important for policy researchers and evaluation professionals, social scientists concerned with evaluation methods, public officials working in social policy, and students of public policy, economics, and social work.

Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs

Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs PDF Author: Charles F. Manski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674270176
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book

Book Description
Almost everyone would like to see the enactment of sound, practical measures to help disadvantaged people get off welfare and find jobs at decent wages, and over the past quarter-century federal and state governments have struggled to develop just such programs. How do we know whether they are having the hoped-for effect? How do we know whether these vast outlays of money are helping the people they are designed to reach? All welfare and training programs have been subject to professional evaluations, including social experiments and demonstrations designed to test new ideas. This book reviews what we have discovered from past assessments and suggests how welfare and training programs should be planned for the 1990s. The authors of this volume, each a recognized expert in the evaluation of social programs, do more than summarize what we have learned so far. They clarify why the issue of the proper conduct and interpretation of evaluations has itself been a subject of continuing controversy. In part, the problem is organizational, requiring the integrated efforts of social scientists, public officials, and the professionals who execute evaluations. In addition, there is a dispute about scientific method: should evaluators try to understand the complex social processes that make programs succeed (or fail), or should they focus on inputs and outputs, treating the programs themselves as "black boxes" whose machinery remains hidden? Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs will be important for policy researchers and evaluation professionals, social scientists concerned with evaluation methods, public officials working in social policy, and students of public policy, economics, and social work.

Prying the Lid from the Black Box

Prying the Lid from the Black Box PDF Author: David H. Greenberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Occupational training
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description


Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition

Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309171342
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Reform of welfare is one of the nation's most contentious issues, with debate often driven more by politics than by facts and careful analysis. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition identifies the key policy questions for measuring whether our changing social welfare programs are working, reviews the available studies and research, and recommends the most effective ways to answer those questions. This book discusses the development of welfare policy, including the landmark 1996 federal law that devolved most of the responsibility for welfare policies and their implementation to the states. A thorough analysis of the available research leads to the identification of gaps in what is currently known about the effects of welfare reform. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition specifies what-and why-we need to know about the response of individual states to the federal overhaul of welfare and the effects of the many changes in the nation's welfare laws, policies, and practices. With a clear approach to a variety of issues, Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition will be important to policy makers, welfare administrators, researchers, journalists, and advocates on all sides of the issue.

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-work Strategies

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-work Strategies PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Public welfare
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description


Evaluating Welfare Reform

Evaluating Welfare Reform PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309184118
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 fundamentally changed the nation's social welfare system, replacing a federal entitlement program for low-income families, called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), with state-administered block grants, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. PRWORA furthered a trend started earlier in the decade under so called "waiver" programs-state experiments with different types of AFDC rules-toward devolution of design and control of social welfare programs from the federal government to the states. The legislation imposed several new, major requirements on state use of federal welfare funds but otherwise freed states to reconfigure their programs as they want. The underlying goal of the legislation is to decrease dependence on welfare and increase the self-sufficiency of poor families in the United States. In summer 1998, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council to convene a Panel on Data and Methods for Measuring the Effects of Changes in Social Welfare Programs. The panel's overall charge is to study and make recommendations on the best strategies for evaluating the effects of PRWORA and other welfare reforms and to make recommendations on data needs for conducting useful evaluations. This interim report presents the panel's initial conclusions and recommendations. Given the short length of time the panel has been in existence, this report necessarily treats many issues in much less depth than they will be treated in the final report. The report has an immediate short-run goal of providing DHHS-ASPE with recommendations regarding some of its current projects, particularly those recently funded to study "welfare leavers"-former welfare recipients who have left the welfare rolls as part of the recent decline in welfare caseloads.

Psychological Perspectives in Evaluation of Work-welfare Programs

Psychological Perspectives in Evaluation of Work-welfare Programs PDF Author: Edward M. Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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More Evaluating Training Programs

More Evaluating Training Programs PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Employees
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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National Evaluation of Welfare-to-work Strategies

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-work Strategies PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Public welfare
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Report of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to the Congress Under the Manpower Development and Training Act

Report of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to the Congress Under the Manpower Development and Training Act PDF Author: United States. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Evaluating Federal Social Programs

Evaluating Federal Social Programs PDF Author: Sar A. Levitan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Monograph on the evaluation of social policy programmes in the USA - discusses the application of evaluation techniques and the use of evaluation within the institutional framework (legislative and executive branches), with particular reference to the hew department and the labour administration. References.