Welfare to Work

Approaches That Help Teenage Mothers Complete High School Gao ID: HEHS/PEMD-95-202 September 29, 1995

A variety of local programs seek to help teenage mothers complete their secondary education and thereby avoid welfare dependency. GAO found that close monitoring of teenage mothers' educational activities coupled with follow-up when their attendance drops, increases the likelihood that they will complete their education. Leveraging the welfare benefit as a sanction or reward for attendance has contributed to the completion of high school by teenage mothers. Providing support services to overcome barriers to continued attendance, with or without financial incentives, also seems to work, especially for dropouts. Finally, assistance in meeting child care or transportation needs may be particularly helpful to motivate young mothers to complete their secondary education. Although current federal Aid to Families With Dependent Children policy stresses the importance of teenage mothers' participation in the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program, it does not require states to serve all teenage mothers in JOBS, nor does it require states to monitor the school attendance of all teenage mothers on welfare. Congress is now deliberating several reforms to the welfare system, including whether to provide benefits to teenage mothers. Although GAO found that several approaches can succeed in helping teenage mothers complete high school, the final form of any reform legislation will likely influence state's use of these approaches.

GAO found that: (1) communities have responded to the growth of unwed teenage mothers by creating programs to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency by completing their secondary education; (2) three of the five programs studied increased secondary education completion by actively monitoring school attendance and providing access to child care and transportation; (3) innovative approaches to help teenage mothers complete high school included alternative public schools for pregnant and parenting students, residential facilities for homeless teenage mothers on welfare, and home visiting; (4) all of the 15 cities surveyed required teenage mothers on welfare to continue their secondary education, but 12 of the cities did not monitor the teenage mothers' attendance; and (5) states use of these successful approaches will depend on Congress' decision on whether welfare benefits should be provided to teenage mothers.



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