Stephani L Wrabel

To understand the relationship between participating in the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (AJROTC) program and longer-term outcomes, the authors analyzed longitudinal student data and Army service member records. A logic model and interviews contextualize study findings of increased attendance and graduation rates but reduced college enrollment rates among those participating in AJROTC for all of high school.

This report reviews recent evidence on U.S.-based social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions for K-12 students to better inform the use of these interventions under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The authors discuss the opportunities for supporting SEL under ESSA, the standards of evidence under ESSA, and SEL interventions that meet the standards of evidence and might be eligible for federal funds through ESSA.

In this report, RAND researchers describe the Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative-which is an effort to explore whether and how children benefit when schools and out-of-school time programs partner to improve and align social and emotional learning-as well as what it takes to do this work. The researchers report findings and early lessons from the first two years of implementation in the six participating communities.

The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program serves young people ages 16 to 18 who struggle to complete their high school credential. This report is the ninth in a series of annual updates and covers the program and participants who entered in 2023.

This research on National Guard Youth ChalleNGe--a residential, quasi-military program for people aged 16-18 at risk of not completing high school--and Job ChalleNGe--a continuation program focused on job training and workplace acculturation--integrates the perspective of ChalleNGe staff and participants and leverages national demographic data and state education and labor data to provide insights for program leadership to use in decisionmaking.

The 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. This report covers the 2022-2023 program year and is the eighth in a series of annual reports that RAND researchers have issued over three research projects. Each report documents the progress of ChalleNGe participants during a specific program year.

In considering whether Department of Defense youth programs help bridge the civilian-military divide, the authors survey school leaders to gauge their awareness and perceptions of these programs; review curricula to understand how they support students' development of civics, leadership, and service knowledge; and conduct analyses on the influence of these programs on military applications and accessions.

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 report documents the progress of participants entering ChalleNGe during specific program years.

The UNITE Initiative aims to promote readiness and resilience in the Air Force through events that focus on unit cohesion. The authors describe the results of their evaluation of UNITE and the program's association with unit cohesion, drawing on interviews with UNITE representatives and post-event surveys completed by airmen participants.

The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program serves young people who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school through a 5.5-month residential program. The authors of this report document the progress of program participants in 2019 and 2020; examine progress of participants in the Job ChalleNGe program, which provides additional training to Youth ChalleNGe graduates; and analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on both programs.

National Guard Youth ChalleNGe is a residential, quasi-military program for young people at risk of dropping out of high school. This report, which provides information on recent ChalleNGe participants, will be of interest to ChalleNGe program staff, personnel providing oversight for the program, and policymakers concerned with designing effective youth programs and/or determining appropriate metrics by which to track progress in youth programs.