Reinvesting in America’s Youth: Lessons from the 2009 Recovery Act Summer Youth Employment Initiative

On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Passed in response to the 2008 recession, the Act’s purpose was to create jobs, pump money into the economy, and encourage spending. Through the Act, states received $1.2 billion in funding for the workforce investment system to provide employment and training activities targeted to disadvantaged youth. Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) encouraged states and local workforce investment areas charged with implementing these youth activities to use the funds to create employment opportunities for these youth in the summer of 2009. To gain insights into these summer initiatives, DOL’s Employment and Training Administration contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to conduct an implementation evaluation of the summer youth employment activities funded by the Recovery Act. As part of the evaluation, Mathematica analyzed (1) monthly performance data submitted to ETA by the states, and (2) qualitative data collected through in-depth site visits to 20 local areas. This report describes the national context for implementation, provides an in-depth description of the experience of selected local areas, and presents lessons on implementation practices that may inform future summer youth employment efforts

When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers Program, Executive Summary, First Year Findings

In an era when most parents work, many Americans want their children to have access to safe and supervised after-school activities that can help develop academic, personal, and social skills. In 1994, Congress authorized the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers (21st­ Century) program to open np schools for broader use by their communities. In 1998, the program was refocused on supporting schools to provide school-based academic and recreational activities after school and during other times when schools were not in regular session, such as on weekends, holidays, and during summers. As an after-school program, 21st-Century grew quickly from an appropriation of $40 million in fiscal year 1998 to$1 billion in fiscal year 2002. It now suppo1ts after-school programs in about 7,500 rural and inner-city public schools in more than 1,400 communities. Programs operate in public school buildings and offer academic, recreational, and cultural activities during after-school hours. A distinguishing characteristic of 21st-Century programs is the inclusion of academic activities. Grants made after April 1998 included a requirement that programs include academic activities

Abortion in the United States' bible belt: organizing for power and empowerment

Over the last 30 years, conservative power in the United States, financed and organized by Christian fundamentalist sects, the Catholic Church, and conservative corporate and political leadership, has become more threatening and potentially destabilizing of progressive democratic principles and practices. Powerful interlocking political, financial and social forces are arrayed against women in many Southern and Western states. They are having destructive effects on women's ability to control their fertility and maintain bodily integrity and health. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion services. Strategically developed interventions must be initiated and managed at every level in these localities. It is urgent to coordinate and empower individuals, multiple organizations and communities to engender effective changes in attitudes, norms, behavior and policies that will enable women to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion care. This paper describes contextual factors that continue to decimate U.S. women's right to health and, then, describes a community organizing-social action project in a number of US' states aimed at reversing the erosion of women's right to have or not to have children