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A discussion among school and business leaders in Seattle (Washington) revealed that no one had a clear picture of the total community effort in support of schools or the external resources schools actually needed. The Program on Reinventing Public Education of the University of Washington conducted a study to determine how external resources were being distributed in the Seattle schools and whether these resources were meeting the needs of schools. School principals were surveyed in 1995 about the 1994-95 school year. The survey asked about funds from Seattle's Families and Education Levy, but did not ask about funds raised from sources within the school, such as a Parent Teacher Association. Survey results showed the immense scale and variety of external resources provided to Seattle schools. The Families and Education Levy alone provided over five million dollars in the school year, and was hailed by principals as indispensable to their schools. Local businesses offered multiple resources. In fact, public sector programs, grants, and contributions made up 49% of the dollar value of services available to Seattle public schools, and another 10% of the total dollar value of resources came from one private grant to a single high school. The remaining 41% came from local private sources in the form of 321 separate programs and services. Many of these were transient; almost half identified in a 1991 study of private contributions had disappeared by the 1995 survey. Researchers found that the overall distribution of these resources appeared to be random and unrelated to goals and strategies for school improvement and student achievement. (Contains three figures.) (SLD)

Three case studies are offered of the delivery structure for employment programs dealing with "high-risk" youth in three settings. These three, representing distinctive types of delivery systems prevalent in the implementation of federally funded employment programs, are (1) Seattle-King County, where the designated local recipient of Federal funds contracts with other units of local government to deliver services; (2) Clark County, Washington, where a county agency covering a rural-metropolitan area delivers services through its own agencies; and (3) San Francisco, where a unit of local government contracts primarily with nonprofit community agencies to deliver services. Data are from unstructured and structured interviews with employment administrators at the local level, front-line personnel in organizations delivering services, and young people. The case studies are presented in this format: (1) discussion of general characteristics of structure and operations, including the local-level agency with general responsibility for Federal employment policy, the organizations with delivery-level responsibility, the local political setting and labor market, and the structure of administrative relations between central administrators and service deliverers; (2) discussion of the nature of delivery-level work in service delivery organizations; and (3) discussion of young people's perceptions and experiences with school, work, and employment programs. (YLB)

A policy that addresses youth unemployment with monetary expansion for similar fiscal policies is criticized as compounding the problem, and alternative solutions are offered. Accordingly, a brief look at youth labor market characteristics, pertinent labor market theory, and the present industrial distribution of employed youth is offered. A general overview of occupational trends follows, with a closer look at growth occupations that are relatively accessible to youth. It is the position of the paper that those jobs most likely to be created in greater numbers by monetary expansion or similar fiscal policies are not of the sort likely to increase future earnings or productivity, positively affect the equity problem, or foster educational efforts. Some job creation efforts that have been tried are discussed, including work experience, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, on-the-job training, tax incentives, local efforts and entrepreneurship, public works, and the military. Methods of and points for intervention are offered that are likely to stimulate job creation to alleviate the problem, including the targeting of in-school and out-of-school youth, creation of secondary jobs for in-school and primary jobs for out-of-school youth, and creation of incentives for the private sector. (YLB)

The development of Federal policies affecting youth employment has gone through five critical periods during the 20th century. The period began with the failure of child labor reformers to obtain Federal intervention in youth labor markets. The New Deal greatly enhanced a reversal of the trend. Development of the Great Society programs provided an ongoing Federal commitment to improving the employability of disadvantaged youth. Comprehensive Federal youth employment programs initiated attempts to roll back earlier Federal efforts to intervene in the youth labor market. Currently, proposals are favoring greater involvement of the private sector in youth employment policy formulation. Each of the five major periods of Federal policy initiatives concerning youth employment policy has been characterized by excessive labor supply conditions. It is hypothesized that these periods of excessive labor supply have been significant factors in the creation and perpetuation of a political coalition that has successfully influenced Federal youth employment policy. Federal youth employment policy has had two major focuses: exclusion (limiting youth access to adult labor markets) and enclosure (keeping youth "busy" outside the adult labor market). The rationale is economic efficiency--keeping youth in school to protect adult jobs and increasing youth skills to improve productivity and career opportunities. (YLB)

Policy analysis consists of evaluating policy options in terms of their effects. The analysis is not complete, however, until the reasoning has been reversed, starting at the outcome end and reasoning back to the first choice (backward mapping). Reversing the logic has two effects on analysis; it provides insurance against unanticipated effects, and it changes the content of the policy options recommended. Using reversible logic also means deliberately building into one's parochial (narrow) solution an anticipation of others' parochial solutions. An energy consumption example can be used to demonstrate how reversible logic works. The forward leg starts with a standard set of implements, the backward leg with a set of decisions that policy would have to affect in order to influence energy consumption. The forward and backward legs produce almost opposite results. Youth employment is a complex example of a multiple-jurisdiction, multiple-outcome policy. Employment policy may have several purposes. Successful implementation consists of trading multiple objectives against one another to achieve desired outcomes. Other sources of complexity are multiple political jurisdictions and variations in the parameters that influence policy. (YLB)

Research on the local implementation of national policies offering youth employment focused on "high-risk" youth in Seattle, San Francisco, and Clark County, Washington. Data from structured interviews with young people, front-line workers, and local administrators were analyzed using "backward mapping" (going from behavior to delivery-level practice and structure to policy). The picture of young people's entry into the labor market that emerged was characterized by a relatively high degree of movement between school and work, a relatively low degree of reliance on school as a means of entrance to the labor market, and a relatively high reliance on significant individuals rather than institutions or organizations. Front-line workers manifested an underlying tension between developmental and instrumental views of their jobs. Their work involved a high level of individual interaction with young people and coworkers in their own organizations but virtually no contact with people performing similar jobs in other organizations. They had a relatively informal work environment and perceived themselves as having limited control. Perceptions of policy and organization changed significantly as one moved from front-line workers to administrators in delivery organizations and to local government administrators of Federal employment programs. Two surprising research findings were organizational stability and the small effect of structure on delivery-level work. (YLB)

Faced with an enrollment decline of over 50 percent since 1962, the board of the public school system in Seattle (Washington) decided in 1981 to close 18 of the district's 112 schools. This report details the decade-long process that led to this decision, treating in particular the changing relationships among the school district, the city, and concerned citizens. Drawing on interviews with local city and school officials and community representatives, and on examinations of the records of the period, the researchers found that the process of school district policy-making on facility utilization had been fraught with many difficulties and had undergone many changes. The roles of the school board and citizen groups in obtaining, developing, and utilizing relevant information changed considerably over the years. Despite an outcome that failed to satisfy all participants fully, the policy development process did lead to some positive results and suggested to the researchers ways in which the many problems raised by massive retrenchment can be overcome. (Author/MLF)

A 1981 study was conducted to explore and modify both sentiment concerning retirement and its effects on career plans. The study's three principal components were a questionnaire mailed to a sample of 1002 University of Washington nonacademic staff members aged 36 through 55, a "mid-career planning" workshop for 75 questionnaire respondents, and a telephone interview to assess effects of the questionnaire and workshop. The hypothesis tested was that prolonged work participation can be encouraged by promoting early attention to later-year needs and by reducing job demands through part-time work and reduced workloads. The general age vicinity of 48 to 50 years was identified as the threshold of intense interest in planning for the future and retirement. Those respondents interested in part-time arrangements tended to plan significantly earlier retirements. They were in disproportionate numbers when over 50 years old, female, secondary income contributors, and relatively well-educated. Participants felt the workshop's focus on career planning using a long-range perspective was correct. The best features of the three workshops held were combined into a single recommended format. (The final section of the report analyzes the evaluation of the effectiveness of the questionnaire and workshop. Questionnaires, workshop materials, and some data are appended.) (YLB)