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The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for youth ages 16 to 18 who are experiencing difficulties in traditional high school. The program provides classroom instruction and other structured activities to young people at 40 different sites. This capstone report describes some of RAND's research and analyses on the ChalleNGe program from late 2017 through mid-2020. Using a mixed-methods approach, the RAND team developed a program logic model, carried out a series of site visits, and planned and executed numerous analytic efforts. Many of the results of specific analytic efforts are described in other reports; here, the authors focus on identifying and recommending strategies for programs to measure participants' long-term outcomes. Consistently measuring long-term outcomes will allow the program to determine overall progress toward meeting its mission of ensuring that program participants are prepared for success as productive citizens.

The National Guard Youth Challenge (ChalleNGe) program serves young people who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school through a quasi-military, 5.5-month residential program. The RAND Corporation's ongoing analyses of the ChalleNGe program are designed to meet multiple objectives. The first is to gather and analyze existing data from each ChalleNGe site to support the program's yearly report to Congress. To that end, the authors of this report document the progress of program participants (or "cadets") in 2019 and 2020. Participation in the ChalleNGe program remains strong; nearly 13,000 young people entered the ChalleNGe program during 2019, and over 9,500 of those graduated. Among graduates, the vast majority left the program with a recognized credential or with credits toward high school graduation. ChalleNGe is a well-established program with sites in the majority of states, but given the relatively short duration of the residential portion, the program provides limited career and technical training. In recent years, Job ChalleNGe programs have been established at six sites. Job ChalleNGe builds on the ChalleNGe model by providing additional training to ChalleNGe graduates. Job ChalleNGe provides this training through a 5.5-month residential program that focuses on developing career and technical skills. The authors of this report provide initial implementation findings in this document and include a summary of planned future analyses to support ChalleNGe and Job ChalleNGe. Additionally, the authors examine some of the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on both programs.

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.

The Conference Report of the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1999 directed the establishment of a 5-year pilot program requiring the military Services to treat graduates of homeschools, and graduates of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program who possess a GED, as Tier 1 for enlistment eligibility purposes. This study evaluates how these recruits compare with other recruits. Because of the substantial cost of replacing recruits who do not fulfill their enlistment obligation, attrition rates serve as our primary outcome measure; however we also examine other measures including initial aptitude, initial paygrade, type of discharge, presence of waivers, and reason for separation. We find that both homeschooled and ChalleNGe GED recruits have much higher attrition rates than traditional high school graduates. Our findings on other measures match up with our attrition findings; homeschooled and ChalleNGe GED recruits are not strong recruits by these measures either.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandated a pilot test of a program in which Army recruiters were authorized to recruit individuals into any of the three components and to receive credit for an enlistee for a period of not less than three years. This report provides the following: details about the design of the pilot test; a three-year analysis of the effects that consolidated recruiting efforts had on the ability of recruiters to attract and place qualified candidates; a determination of the extent to which consolidating recruiting efforts affected efficiency; and a discussion of challenges associated with a recruiter working to recruit individuals to enlist in a component in which the recruiter may not have served and of the satisfaction of recruiters with the pilot program. Overall, the program's effects on contracts and efficiency were small and not statistically meaningful. Given the absence of statistically or substantively meaningful effects on contract production or recruiting efficiency, as well as certain stakeholder concerns, the Army decided to terminate the pilot program after the third year. Weaknesses in the implementation of the program are highly likely to have contributed to the absence of meaningful differences in production between the test and comparison sites. But on balance, considering the organizational and operational changes required and related costs, the study team concluded that it is not likely that the Army can, particularly in the near term, overcome the challenges to launch a successful cross-component recruiting program.

In the fourth annual report on the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, a residential, quasi-military program for youth struggling in traditional high school, researchers provide information on participants who entered the program in 2018.

"Over the past 15 years, deployments have represented a key aspect of military service, with many service members completing multiple tours. Given the disruption that deployments pose, it is not surprising that they are associated with numerous service member and family outcomes. Therefore, accrued deployment experience constitutes a relevant metric not only for measuring military experience, but also for measuring service member and family well-being. In this research, the authors compare deployment experience across the services and components. They also examine the transitions of soldiers between Army components to determine whether the Army retains soldiers with the largest amounts of deployment experience. Enlisted personnel made up the bulk of those who have deployed, as do personnel from the active component of their service. Most service members who deployed were married at the time; about half had children. Average time spent in a single deployment varies across the services. Consequently, the same amount of total time deployed could have different impacts depending on how that total deployment experience was accumulated. Also, service members' individual resilience to deployments may vary. Given such variation, deployment experience may need to be managed differently across services and personnel. Tracking deployment experience carefully, in terms of total number of deployments and total time deployed, would likely assist in managing these differences."--Provided by publisher.

"This report assesses empirical applications of web search data and discusses the prospective value such data can offer Army recruiting efforts. The authors examine three different tools -- Google Trends, Google AdWords, and Google Correlate -- that can be used to access and analyze readily available, anonymous data from Internet searches related to the Army and to Army service. They found that Google search queries can inform how interest in military careers has evolved over time and by geographic location and can identify the foremost Army-related concerns that potential recruits have. Moreover, by analyzing how search terms correlate across time, it is possible to predict with reasonable accuracy what non-Army related terms people are searching for in the months before or after an Army query. These queries serve as leading and lagging indicators of army-related searches and can offer a glimpse into the concerns of individuals near the time period when they are considering joining. The results suggest that search terms can serve as an indicator of propensity and can be incorporated into models to predict highly qualified Army accessions"--Publisher's web site.

"The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for young people ages 16-18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. The program is operated by participating states through their state National Guard organizations with supporting federal funds and oversight. The first ChalleNGe sites began in the mid-1990s; today there are 40 ChalleNGe sites in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To date, more than 145,000 young people have completed the ChalleNGe program. Congress requires the ChalleNGe program to deliver a report on its progress each year. The program includes a 5.5-month Residential Phase followed by a 12-month Post-Residential Phase, which includes support from a mentor. The stated goal of ChalleNGe is "to intervene in and reclaim the lives of 16-18-year-old high school dropouts, producing program graduates with the values, life skills, education, and self-discipline necessary to succeed as productive citizens." In this report, we provide information on recent ChalleNGe participants, is in support of the required annual report to Congress. We also lay out a framework for evaluating ChalleNGe sites. Subsequent reports will provide additional information on future cohorts of students, will build on this framework to develop more detailed and more effective metrics, and will provide strategies for data collection in support of these metrics. Methods used in this study include site visits, data collection and analysis, literature review, and development of two tools to assist in improving the metrics - a theory of change (TOC) and a program logic model. "--Publisher's description.