National Guard Youth ChalleNGe: Program Progress in 2016–2017

Abstract

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication.ISBN: 978-1-9774-0007-9 For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR2276Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2018 RAND CorporationR® is a registered trademark. Cover Image by Staff Sgt. Darron Salzer, National Guard Bureau iii PrefaceThe 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. Participating states, through their state National Guard organizations with supporting federal funds and oversight, operate the program. The first ChalleNGe sites began in the mid-1990s; today, there are 40 ChalleNGe sites in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To date, about 155,000 young people have completed the ChalleNGe program. Congress requires the ChalleNGe program to deliver a report on its progress each year.The program includes a 5.5-month Residential Phase followed by a 12-month PostResidential Phase. Participants are supported by a mentor throughout both phases. The stated goal of ChalleNGe is "to intervene in and reclaim the lives of 16-18-year-old high school dropouts, producing program graduates with the values, life skills, education, and self-discipline necessary to succeed as productive citizens."The RAND team's analyses of ChalleNGe began in September 2016; ongoing efforts will continue through June 2020. This report is the second in a series of annual reports that RAND researchers will issue during the duration of this project. The first National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Annual Report covers program years 2015-2016 and can be found on the RAND Corporation's website (Wenger et al., 2017); the third report will cover program years [2017][2018] and is expected to be released in late 2018. RAND researchers will issue a fourth annual report covering 2018-2019 in late 2019. Given this time frame, the current report includes only a portion of our a...

National Guard Youth ChalleNGe: Program Progress in 2019–2020

“…As in previous reports, the graduation rate is calculated by comparing the number of cadets completing ChalleNGe with the number entering ChalleNGe; this definition, which can be calculated consistently from the data collected across all 10 classes, is slightly different than the definition used elsewhere in this chapter. The data included in this figure are not directly comparable with the information included in Figure 2.8 in Wenger, Constant, and Cottrell, 2018, because in that report, we excluded 2017 data from the Puerto Rico site because of Hurricane Maria-related disruptions. This chart includes 2017 data obtained later from the Puerto Rico site.…”

“…The value of community service is calculated using published figures at the state level for 2015, which are available online (Independent Sector, 2020). The value of community service was calculated in the same manner in previous annual reports (Constant et al, 2019;Constant et al, 2020;National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, 2015;Wenger, Constant, and Cottrell, 2018;Wenger et al, 2017). As in past years, community service does vary across sites (cadets are required to complete 40 hours of community service, but cadets at some programs complete many additional hours of service).…”

“…(Independent Sector, 2020). The value of community service was calculated in the same manner in the previous annual reports (Constant et al, 2019;National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, 2015;Wenger, Constant, and Cottrell, 2018;Wenger et al, 2017).…”

Examining Career and Technical Education in National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Programs

“…We conducted interviews over the phone in the spring of 2019 with a handful of ChalleNGe sites to understand in greater detail what type of CTE programming they provided and how they went about integrating CTE as part of their array of offerings. 8 To select the sites, we examined the data 2017; Wenger, Constant, and Cottrell, 2018;and Constant et al, 2019. collected from the classes or cohorts which were in session in 2017 and 2018 (collected from the sites in the summer and fall of 2018 and 2019) and identified sites with more-developed CTE in terms of the range of CTE classes offered and the rate of participation of cadets. We also selected sites to broadly represent diversity in terms of program size, geography and location, and years of operation.…”

“…We asked sites to collect two kinds of CTE information for each cadet: the number of CTE credit hours they received while at ChalleNGe and whether they received a CTE certificate. It is important to note that these are self-reported data from the sites, and the definitions of CTE credit hours and certificates are not 12 For more details on ChalleNGe, see Constant et al, 2019;Wenger, Constant, and Cottrell, 2018;and Wenger et al, 2017. necessarily consistent across sites or comparable to national benchmarks. We also allowed the sites to define CTE credit hours and certificates rather than imposing a national-or state-level definition.…”