The Ford Foundation asked PPA to conduct a six-year longitudinal evaluation of the Lifelong Learning Accounts (LiLA), a national demonstration project testing a new financing mechanism for employment training and education benefits.
Lifelong Learning Accounts are voluntarily created by workers and matched by their employers, and even third parties. The demonstration project was implemented in Chicago, northeast Indiana, and San Francisco by the Council for Adult and Educational Learning and was funded by the Ford Foundation. The Foundation wanted to know how well it was working and asked PPA to evaluate the project.
The PPA team: The PPA team was led by Dr. Nancy Hewat, the director of PPA's Education, Workforce, and Economic Development group.
Our Work: PPA's evaluation set out to answer these questions:
Does the availability of Lifelong Learning Accounts increase the likelihood that companies will invest in learning and development of their employees or change the amount and type of investment?
Does the availability and use of the accounts increase the likelihood that individuals will engage in training that can advance their careers?
Do employers who offer Lifelong Learning Accounts see benefits to their companies and employees?
Evaluation Method: PPA tracked all 359 participants and their participating LiILA employers for six years. A matched sample of nonparticipating employees of the same employers was also tracked, as was a comparision group of nonparticipating employers. Each participant was interviewed five times.
PPA created an Access relational database with a wide variety of historical and current data for participating employers and employees. The database enabled PPA to record and monitor changes in participant profiles.
Results: PPA produced interim reports and prepared a final report. The findings provided the Council and the Ford Foundation with independent high-value information to inform discussions and decisions regarding the possible expansion of the approach to other communities.
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