Implementing the Job Training Partnership Act: The impact of decentralized administration on training programs and policy

This study examines the present operations and future possibilities of federal employment and training policy. The study is divided into two parts. A historical and comparative analysis of U.S. employment and training policy, and an empirical investigation of local Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program operations. The historical/comparative analysis provides the justification for examining local JTPA operations and grounds the empirical analysis. The study begins with an examination of the limits of employment and training policy in the United States which has focused on providing remedial services to the most disadvantaged segments of the labor force. A comparison of the scope of policy in the U.S. with that pursued in other western industrialized nations highlights those limits and indicates the institutional requirements of more effective policy. The historical analysis identifies three areas of administrative development--decentralization, private sector involvement, and local coordination--that define local administrative development and are used to categorize local programs for the empirical analysis.; The study's second half is an empirical investigation of local variation in program administration and its impact on program operations. It is hypothesized that local JTPA operations vary significantly in program organization and that these variations help explain variations in program performance. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of a random sample of the administrative units which locally implement JTPA. The 106 administrative entities included in the study are evaluated in terms of three criteria of local program performance: success in meeting legislative goals, exposure to management problems of concern to policymakers, and the development enhanced service offerings.; The study finds that program administration and organization significantly influence local program performance. The study confirms that three decades of federal policy experimentation have stimulated the development of decentralized administrative capacity. Notwithstanding the progress that has occurred, public and private labor market institutions remain ill-adapted to address the institutional failures that are the root causes of an inadequately trained workforce.