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The National Guard Youth Challenge (ChalleNGe) program serves young people who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school through a quasi-military, 5.5-month residential program. The RAND Corporation's ongoing analyses of the ChalleNGe program are designed to meet multiple objectives. The first is to gather and analyze existing data from each ChalleNGe site to support the program's yearly report to Congress. To that end, the authors of this report document the progress of program participants (or "cadets") in 2019 and 2020. Participation in the ChalleNGe program remains strong; nearly 13,000 young people entered the ChalleNGe program during 2019, and over 9,500 of those graduated. Among graduates, the vast majority left the program with a recognized credential or with credits toward high school graduation. ChalleNGe is a well-established program with sites in the majority of states, but given the relatively short duration of the residential portion, the program provides limited career and technical training. In recent years, Job ChalleNGe programs have been established at six sites. Job ChalleNGe builds on the ChalleNGe model by providing additional training to ChalleNGe graduates. Job ChalleNGe provides this training through a 5.5-month residential program that focuses on developing career and technical skills. The authors of this report provide initial implementation findings in this document and include a summary of planned future analyses to support ChalleNGe and Job ChalleNGe. Additionally, the authors examine some of the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on both programs.

High school dropouts --- Military education --- Residence and education --- Alternative schools --- Services for. --- Evaluation. --- National Guard Youth Challenge Program (U.S.) --- United States.

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The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has a broad set of missions in the maritime domain, including 11 statutory missions across the categories of maritime safety, maritime security, and maritime stewardship. Among its assets for accomplishing these missions are major cutters — large, oceangoing vessels capable of spending substantial amounts of time away from their home ports. The USCG faces a challenge in determining the optimal length of days away from home port for personnel on major cutters. Confronting this challenge requires an understanding of how personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO) relates to USCG servicemember behavior. However, the empirical relationship between days spent away from home port and servicemember behavior is unknown. To help address this knowledge gap, the authors analyze how servicemembers respond to various levels of PERSTEMPO, as well as the effects of working conditions and incentives on these responses.

Employee retention --- Quality of work life --- Armed Forces --- Sea life. --- United States. --- Personnel management.

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The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for youth ages 16–18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. Participating states operate the program, which began in the mid-1990s, with supporting federal funds and oversight from state National Guard organizations. RAND's ongoing analysis of the ChalleNGe program has two primary objectives. The first is to gather and analyze existing data from each ChalleNGe site on an annual basis to support the program's yearly report to Congress. This RAND report, the third in a series of four annual reports, documents the progress of program participants (or "cadets") in 2017–2018. The second objective of this project is to identify longer-term metrics for the overall effectiveness of the program, including ones that will help determine how site-level differences influence program effectiveness. In addition to preparing this year's annual report, the RAND study team also undertook several analytic efforts that address components of the ChalleNGe program. These additional analytic efforts are intended to address gaps in data collection, particularly around long-term outcomes, and better understand program design and implementation issues (for instance, how to improve the mentoring component). This report includes a review of a few of the analytic efforts the study team developed over the past year in support of the ChalleNGe program, including a benchmarking analysis aimed at developing realistic goals and expectations for ChalleNGe participants.

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The Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandated a pilot test of a program in which Army recruiters were authorized to recruit individuals into any of the three components and to receive credit for an enlistee for a period of not less than three years. This report provides the following: details about the design of the pilot test; a three-year analysis of the effects that consolidated recruiting efforts had on the ability of recruiters to attract and place qualified candidates; a determination of the extent to which consolidating recruiting efforts affected efficiency; and a discussion of challenges associated with a recruiter working to recruit individuals to enlist in a component in which the recruiter may not have served and of the satisfaction of recruiters with the pilot program. Overall, the program's effects on contracts and efficiency were small and not statistically meaningful. Given the absence of statistically or substantively meaningful effects on contract production or recruiting efficiency, as well as certain stakeholder concerns, the Army decided to terminate the pilot program after the third year. Weaknesses in the implementation of the program are highly likely to have contributed to the absence of meaningful differences in production between the test and comparison sites. But on balance, considering the organizational and operational changes required and related costs, the study team concluded that it is not likely that the Army can, particularly in the near term, overcome the challenges to launch a successful cross-component recruiting program.

Recruiting and enlistment. --- United States. --- Recruiting, enlistment, etc. --- Evaluation.

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National Guard Youth ChalleNGe is a residential, quasi-military program for young people ages 16 to 18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. This report covers the program years 2021–2022 and is the seventh in a series of annual reports that RAND Corporation researchers have issued over the course of two research projects. Each annual report supports the program's annual report to Congress and documents the progress of participants who entered ChalleNGe during specific program years. In this report, the authors provide information on program participants in 2021, as well as some follow-up information on those who entered the program in 2020. This report draws primarily on quantitative program and site data but also draws on analyses of existing literature, quantitative data describing the civilian labor market, and qualitative data collected from virtual site visits and interviews. Caveats to be considered include some documented inconsistencies in reported data across sites and the short-run nature of many of the metrics reported here.

High school dropouts --- Military education --- Residence and education --- Alternative schools --- Résidence et éducation --- Écoles alternatives --- Services for. --- Evaluation. --- Evaluation. --- Evaluation. --- Évaluation. --- Évaluation. --- National Guard Youth Challenge Program (U.S.) --- National Guard Youth Challenge Program (U.S.) --- Evaluation. --- United States