Promoting Youth Development in Urban Communities: Unprecedented Success for the Quantum Opportunities Program

A Forum — October 28, 1994

"The most successful youth development program ever evaluated." That was the claim for the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) featured at the American Youth Policy Forum briefing. The program, which served 25 participants in each of five cities, provided high school-aged children from welfare dependent families with intensive educational assistance, community service experience, life skills instruction, and financial incentives throughout their high school years.

QOP' s impact was dramatic, reported Andrew Hahn of Brandeis University, who led the QOP evaluation. Compared with a randomly assigned control group, 21 percent more QOP participants graduated high school, 26 percent more enrolled in post secondary education and training, and many fewer became pregnant or got arrested. Though the program cost more than $10,000 per participant, cost-benefit analysis revealed that QOP saved three to four dollars for every dollar invested.

"The QOP impacts dwarf those of any program we have evaluated," explained Robert Taggart, former director of Department of Labor youth programs during the Carter Administration who helped design QOP and ran its learning labs. "And proof of its impacts is more scientifically valid than any previous findings because of the rigorous experimental design." QOP presents "a quantum opportunity to change and improve the way we work with youth in this country," Taggart argued.

What were the elements of this ground breaking program? Why was it so effective? What are its implications for youth policy and youth programming? To answer these and other questions, the Forum convened a panel which including QOP's principal researcher, the program's funder (Dr. Robert Curvin and the Ford Foundation), national and local QOP staff, plus a QOP participant.

The Program

The Quantum Opportunities Program was a multi-site demonstration project serving youth from families receiving public assistance. The program model was designed by Robert Taggart and Ben Lattimore, Director of Literacy Programs for Opportunities Industrial Centers of America (OIC). It was funded with $1,280,000 from the Ford Foundation.

QOP began in the summer of 1989 with the selection of 50 students in each of five cities -- Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Saginaw, and Milwaukee. In each city, half of the youth were assigned to a control group, while the other half were enrolled in QOP programs operated by local OIC affiliates. Unlike most youth programs that have been evaluated, QOP involved no application process. Rather, participants were selected from a paper list of the previous year's 8th grade students who were receiving public assistance. Only after the names were selected did program staff and researchers contact the participants.

In each of the cities, program participants were offered a series of "quantum opportunities" aimed at fostering their academic and social development. These opportunities were concentrated in three areas: educational activities (centered around a computer-based learning lab but also including tutoring and assistance with homework), community service activities aimed at providing participants' work experience while giving them opportunity to improve conditions in their home communities, and developmental activities to increase their awareness about health, alcohol and drug abuse, sex and family planning, and career/college planning. The activities were offered year-round, in the summer months as well as during the school year. Over the course of the four years each participant was guaranteed at least 250 hours in each of the three activity areas.

To encourage participation, the students were offered three types of financial incentives. (1) a simple stipend ($1.00 initially, rising to $1.33) for every hour they spent in a QOP activity; (2) an additional bonus payment of $100 for every 100 hours they spent in QOP activities; and (3) another $100 for each 100 hours contributed to an "opportunity account" which accrued toward participants use in post secondary education and training .

Overall, participants in the four cities where QOP was implemented successfully spent an average of 1,286 hours in QOP activities during their four years in the program -- time equivalent to another full year of high school. In Philadelphia, the most successful QOP site, participants averaged 2,300 hours. The average payments to Philadelphia participants were $3,000 in hourly stipends, $900 in completion bonuses, and $4,100 in accrual payments for use in post-secondary education and training.

Program staff, too, were provided financial incentives for participation, receiving bonuses based on the total number of hours dedicated to QOP activities by program participants.

Summary of QOP Program Impacts
 

	QOP Participants	Controls
High School Graduates	63%	42%
Postsecondary Enrollment	42	16
Dropouts	23	50
Received Honor or Award	34	12
Childbearing	24	38
Ever Arrested	7	13

Critical Success Factors

The QOP model built upon a long history of learning at the Ford Foundation about what works and what doesn't in youth development, explained Dr. Robert Curvin, Director of the Foundation's Urban Poverty Program. The program incorporates many features of past youth programs -- case management, mentoring, computer-assisted instruction, work experience, financial incentives. Under QOP these elements were brought together into a comprehensive whole and sustained over a four-year period.

Ford's decision to provide "full forward funding" was critical to QOP's success, Curvin said, giving participants and program staff confidence that QOP ' s services would continue throughout the four years and that -- through the accrual accounts -- money would be available to pay for college or other post secondary training.

Another critical factor in QOP' s success was the program philosophy, "once in QOP, always in QOP. " When participants stopped attending QOP activities and disappeared from the program, staff tracked them down -- at their homes, at school, on playgrounds, on the streets, or even in prison -- to find out what was wrong and let the youth know that they were still part of the QOP family. The program's "nurturing supportive atmosphere" was critical, Hahn said, especially the consistent support of "caring adults."

"I don't know too many programs that combine the soft side of youth development with tangible services and financial incentives," Hahn added.

Perhaps QOP's most important feature, however, was its long duration. "It was very interesting that at the end of a year or so nothing really happened," said Curvin. "If it had been a one-year program it would have looked like a failure."

After the second year, some positive differences began to emerge between participants and controls on selected skills, but not on outcomes. A year later, interviewers saw a positive impact on participants' expectations -- mostly because the expectations of non-participating youth began to plummet. At the end of the fourth year participants out scored controls on all 11 skill areas tested by evaluators, but it was only in the post program year that QOP's impact on graduation rates and other key outcomes emerged clearly.

"‘You get what you pay for has long been a mantra in the youth development field," Hahn said. "But that mantra has been based more on the failure of non-comprehensive short-term programs than the documented success of comprehensive long-term programs -- it' s been a mantra by default. "[With QOP] we' re finding for the first time that the mantra may be right."

"We were very interested to test the perception that things are so bad in our urban communities that kids won 't take  advantage of opportunities even if they ' re handed to them on a platter, " Hahn said. "We don't find evidence that that stereotype fits. The kids stuck with the program."

QOP in Philadelphia

Also present for the briefing were Reuben Mills and Phyllis Lawrence, Directors of the Philadelphia QOP program, along with QOP participant Jacqueline Jones.

"My mom wanted me to be a leader and not a follower. She wanted me to move on and do the things she never had a chance to do," said Jones. Only through QOP did Jones get the support and encouragement she needed to achieve those goals. "Before QOP I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, hut I knew I wanted to do something," explained Jones, who is now attending Indiana University of Pennsylvania majoring in psychology with a minor in theater. "QOP has helped me to give back to my community and share more with my family."

Phyllis Lawrence explained that with many participants, she and Mills had to assume a quasi-parenting role.  "We had real difficulty connecting with the parents," she said.  "They really did not understand what their role should be. The whole parenting role concept was missing, so the parenting was projected onto us."

As Ben Lattimore of the national OIC office put it, "The reason the kids succeeded is that they loved Phyllis and Reuben."

Policy Implications of QOP's Success

"As Administrator of the Carter Administrations youth programs, I spent billions of dollars experimenting with different program designs to rewrite the otherwise bleak future of disadvantaged youth," explained Robert Taggart. "Now I've lost my credentials as a researcher because I'm not willing to say that any more research is needed."

Prior to QOP the most successful program ever evaluated was the Job Corps. Careful evaluation showed that it returned $1.35 for every dollar invested, mostly by keeping youth off the street when most at risk. Job Corps increased graduation rates by just 3 percent and increased enrollment in post secondary education by 4 percent -- a small fraction of the impacts achieved in QOP.

As for other training programs for at-risk youth, Taggart said, "Right now no one can say that current JTPA programs for youth have any effect. We all know that this is because the services are offered haphazardly and episodically, that the programs have hollowed out so there are few benefits to youth and few hours of participation, and we all know that the bureaucracies drain off the preponderance of resources," Taggart continued. "So the obvious question is do we continue with failed programs, or do we switch to an effective and replicable approach which works. "

"The policy choice is straightforward," Taggart said. "With $1 billion [per year] of current JTPA money you could create a [national] program toll owing the QOP model" that would enroll a new cohort of 100,000 youth per year.

"What would we gain?" asked Taggart. "The result would be 21,000 more disadvantaged teens graduating from high school every year, 26,000 more going to college, plus fewer births out of wedlock and fewer crimes... What would be lost? Absolutely nothing, since we would simply be replacing services for disadvantaged youth which we know do not work with those which promise so much more."

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