Fall 2004 -- Sarah Looney's article, "Civic Participation and the Internet," published in the LBJ Journal of Public Affairs, Spring 2004, is currently featured on the LBJ School website.

Fall 2004 -- Christopher T. King and Deanna Schexnayder are co-teaching a policy research project (PRP) class, "Labor Market and Postsecondary Patterns of Central Texas High School Graduates," at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin during the 2004-05 academic year. The major client of the PRP is the Capital Area Training Foundation.

9/24/2004 -- Deanna Schexnayder gave an invited presentation on "The Role of Child Care in Texas TANF Transitions" at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administraiton for Children and Families (ACF) Region VI (South Central U.S.) TANF/Child Care Technical Assistance Meeting for state administrators in Dallas.

9/22/2004 -- Deanna Schexnayder participated in a mini-conference at the State Capitol in Austin, organized by The Cecil and Ida Green Center for the Study of Science and Society of The University of Texas at Dallas, entitled "Closing the Gaps in Texas: Research, Practice, and Policy." The conference educated Texas policy makers on the success of strategies to improve high school to college transitions. Ms. Schexnayder's joint presentation with Dr. Jim Granada of the Austin Independent School District (AISD) discussed "Project SOS: Supporting Optimal Scholarship Advanced Placement Incentive Program," AISD's demonstration project designed to improve Advanced Placement participation and performance of low-income students in AISD. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

9/2004 -- Deanna Schexnayder, Daniel Schroeder and former Ray Marshall Center staff member Jerome Olson are co-authors of a chapter entitled "The Dynamics of Child Care Subsidy Use: A Collaborative Study of Five States" in the book, From Welfare to Child Care: What Happens to Young Children When Single Mothers Exchange Welfare for Work?, to be published in Spring 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates

9/2004 -- The Rockefeller Institute has released WIA At Work: A Policy Dialogue, a report on the Institute's May 2004 colloquium on state and local administration of service delivery under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. Included are highlights from the keynote address by Mason Bishop, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor; a presentation of findings from the Institute's eight-state WIA study and challenges for the nation's workforce development system; and WIA service delivery panel sessions featuring state and local officials, as well as researchers. Center Director Christopher T. King is co-directing the eight-state study with Dick Nathan of the Rockefeller Institute and Burt Barnow of Johns Hopkins University. Center research associate Dan O'Shea and Dr. King co-authored a number of the state case studies for the study and presented findings at this colloquium.

8/2004 -- Bryna and Henry David Fellow Sarah Looney published a professional report, Supporting Responsible Fatherhood in Austin, TX: An Analysis of Current Programs and Opportunities, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin.

6/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center issued a report on the devolution of subsidized child care in Texas, examining and analyzing child care policies and program management at the state and local areas over the six-year time period of fiscal years 1998-2003.

5/2004 -- Graduate Research Assistant Andy Redman published a professional report, Another Tale of Two Cities: What Two Capital City, University Towns Can Learn From Each Other, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin.

5/26/2004 -- Christopher T. King and Lawrence Lyman from Travis County presented findings from a recently completed survey of area employers to the monthly meeting of the WorkSource - Greater Austin Area Workforce Board.

5/24/2004 -- Christopher T. King participated in a panel discussion on teacher compensation at the monthly meeting of the Austin ISD Board of Trustees. The panel included Lori Taylor, assistant professor at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government, and Deborah Haas, adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. Panelists reviewed labor markets and pay for teachers in Austin and related school districts and generally advised the AISD Board to be comprehensive and holistic in developing a compensation approach for Austin teachers in order to attract and retain quality teachers now and in the future.

5/20-21/2004 -- Christopher T. King and Sarah Looney participated in a meeting of the Working Poor Families Project at the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York
City. This project is a joint effort of the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and is being coordinated by Brandon Roberts. A number of the states participating in the project are also part of the workforce mapping initiatives that the Rockefeller Foundation is funding.

5/19/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center convened a meeting at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, New York of state advocates involved in mapping and measuring their workforce development systems. Betsy Biemann of the Rockefeller Foundation and Center Director Christopher T. King co-chaired the meeting, which was attended by advocacy researchers from states including California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee and Texas. Dan O'Shea and Sarah Looney also participated in the meeting.

5/17-18/2004 -- Christopher T. King served as faculty to the final Next-Generation Workforce Development System Academy meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The Academy
project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, was convened by the National Governors Association and involves teams from six states -- Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia -- led by their respective governors' offices.

5/6/2004 -- A Workforce Investment Act colloquium, co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration and the Rockefeller
Institute of Government, was held in Washington, D.C. Dick Nathan, Burt Barnow and Center Director Christopher T. King, along with a research team from around the country, briefed policymakers, practitioners and researchers on the findings and implications of the eight-state WIA service delivery study. Dan O'Shea, a research team member and co-author of three of the eight state case studies, also participated in the colloquium.

5/2004 -- Eight state case studies from WIA service delivery study were recently released and can be found on the US Department of Labor/Employment and Training
Administration website. The case studies and other documents about the project can also be viewed on the Rockefeller Institute's website.

4/8/2004--Sarah Looney was named the Outstanding Research Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin. Ms. Looney received her award during a reception at the Campus Club honoring the 2004 nominees and winners of the oustanding graduate student employee competition. Ms. Looney is the Bryna and Henry David Fellow and has been employed at the Ray Marshall Center since September 2002. She will receive a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in August 2004.

4/2004 -- Ray Marshall Center staff completed the draft report from the second year of the Devolution of Subsidized Child Care Services in Texas project. The research team is currently soliciting comments from selected reviewers, and Associate Director Deanna T. Schexnayder is presenting preliminary findings at a national child care research conference and at a meeting with local workforce board staff. The Center expects to release the report to the public sometime this summer.

4/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center issued the first of two reports evalutating the Texas Bootstap Project, a program created as a supplement to the Texas Fragile Families Initiative.

2/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center completed a set of reports documenting what leading-edge states have done to develop and implement non-federal measures of workforce performance for the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices. Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. Two reports from this project are now available.

2/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center has begun a new project with the National
Governors Association's Center for Best Practices and a consortium of states (including Florida, Montana, Oregon and Texas) to develop more integrated performance information systems across a broad array of federal and state workforce education and training funding streams to support improved measurment and management. The consortium is being led by Washington State's Workforce Education and Training Coordinating Board with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. The first IPI project meeting was convened in New Orleans on January 7-10, 2004, and featured presentations by Center Director Christopher T. King. The Center's team of researchers includes Dan O'Shea and Sarah Looney.

2/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center has begun a new project for the United Way of America that will document the benefits and cost of operating 2-1-1 information and referral systems nationally. This effort builds upon pioneering work by Center researchers Dan O'Shea, Christopher T. King and others that provided net benefit estimates for the Texas Information and Referral System in 1998.. The Center, working with the LBJ School's RGK Center and others, will base its estimates on the experience of relatively mature 2-1-1 I&R systems operating in four states and at least eight cities. A report on the findings will be published in the fall of 2004.

1/29-30/2004 -- The Ray Marshall Center convened a meeting of advocates and
researchers from around the country at the LBJ School of Public Affairs to share ideas and lessons learned to date in a series of workforce mapping and indicator efforts and to brainstorm ways of more effectively capitalizing on them in the future. Center founder and former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall spoke to the group at dinner Thursday night. A Center research team led by Director Christopher T. King is working with the Rockefeller Foundation's Working Communities Division and a number of its grantees, including the Center for Public Policy Priorities, the Massachusetts Workforce Alliance, New York's Center for an Urban Future and the Chicago Jobs Council, to assess, develop, and implement improved performance measures for workforce development. This effort builds on previous work the Center has done, including devising more systemic state and local workforce measures in the 1990s, innovative work on return-on-investment and other measures. This work also builds upon state-based workforce efforts that the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations have been supporting, such as the Working Poor Families Projects that is developing an indicators framework to assess state efforts to help the working poor achieve economic self-sufficiency, and a related series of Workforce Development Mapping Projects in seven states that have mapped and conducted comprehensive analyses of the performance of all publicly funded workforce resources and programs in their respective states.

12/10-12/2003 -- Andy Redman was one of two students representing the United States at the World Summit on the Information Society, hosted by the the International Telecommunications Union and the government of Switzerland in Geneva, Switzerland.

11/12/03 -- Ray Marshall, founder and first director of the Center, was honored with a lifetime achievement award by The Austin Project during the 2003 Rostow Awards Dinner held at the University of Texas at Austin Alumni Center.

11/6-8/2003 -- Among the participants in the 25th annual research conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, D.C., were Ray Marshall, who served on a panel entitled "Does Place Matter? The History and Efficacy of Federal Policies to Promote Spatial Equity in Social and Economic Well-Being," and Christopher T. King, who presented a paper entitled "The Workforce Investment Act in Eight States: Findings from a Field Network Study" (co-authored with Burt Barnow of Johns Hopkins University). Additionally, Dr. King was a discussant for three papers on the Bush Administration's proposed Personal Re-Employment Accounts. Deanna Schexnayder and Sarah Looney also attended the conference.

10/29/03 -- Christopher T. King presented a paper entitled "Some Thought-Provoking Pre-Retreat Reflections ... on the Jobless Recovery, the Condition of Local Labor Markets and the Need for Training" to the Capital Area Workforce Board in Austin, Texas.

10/12-18/03 -- Andy Redman was one of two students representing the United States at the International Telecommunications Union Telecom 2003 World Youth Forum, held in Geneva, Switzerland.