Testimony: Continuing to Grow the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP)

Testimony for New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings on The Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Years 2023-2026

Testimony by Patrick Joseph, Education Policy Analyst

Before the New York City Council Committee on Education

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the issue of education expenses in a COVID-19 recovery. My name is Patrick Joseph, and I am the Education Policy Analyst at Community Service Society of New York (CSS), a nonprofit organization that works to eradicate poverty in New York. Since 2005, we have researched and defined the problem of out-of-school, out-of-work youth (OSOW) in New York City. Our work on this issue has moved the City towards making critical investments in education and skill-building for New York City’s youth and young adults. These investments include:

• the modernization of the GED system to better prepare young people for the high school equivalency exams with emphasis on out-of-school youth on public assistance¹
• the creation of the Young Men’s Initiative which supports Black and Latino men between ages 16 and 24 by connecting them to educational and vocational opportunities as well as mentors
• legislation that improved how our city’s Human Resource Administration (HRA) connects youth with public services²
• and most recently, we saw the current mayoral administration expand the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to a historic high of 100,000 opportunities for young people, age 14 to 24.

We commend the mayor for this dramatic increase to SYEP and hope that we continue to see increases to SYEP opportunities over the upcoming years as we build toward a truly universal Summer Youth Employment Program. That said, we would like to inform the City Council of some of the challenges that remain and how we believe that these challenges should be addressed so that SYEP is as equitable and effective as possible.

Recommendations

Ensure that undocumented students are included in SYEP without impediment: Student and parent comments at Citywide Education Councils as well as testimonies at the recent hearing on English Language Learners have made clear that the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) was not able to deliver accurate and timely information about at-home instruction or device availability to undocumented young people during the pandemic. This bias towards English, in a city as diverse as New York, only works to deepen and broaden extant inequities in our education system. We strongly believe action should be taken now to increase language supports for our families. This is particularly important as the expansion of SYEP rolls out this summer. In order to ensure equitable access to SYEP, we ask that the council work with the NYCDOE to ensure that students are not excluded due to lack of timely, language-appropriate information.

Invest in ongoing evaluation of the impacts of program participation on students and schools so that appropriate support services can be adjoined to SYEP: Currently, the datasets available on our city’s open data website share information on NYCHA residents’ enrollment in the program as well as which facilities in the city that offer SYEP. However, if we genuinely want to uplift young people and eradicate the issue of OSOW youth in our city, we must invest in program evaluation and this data should be made public. The mayor has emphasized efficiency and effectiveness, but that cannot be done without measuring progress, which requires data and analysis. While SYEP is highly effective at achieving short terms goals, there was a study done by MDRC in 2017 that found SYEP to have no impact on long-term employment or future college enrollment for the 2006 cohort.³ However, this need not be the case for current or future cohorts. SYEP can be more than just something to do during the summer. Per our report on how to make universal SYEP a reality,⁴ we believe that tightly coupling SYEP to our schools’ curricula and extracurricular activities would be a boon to our students and the program design. By consistently analyzing and reflecting on the various aspects of SYEP, we will be able to see where and how to make deeper connections between SYEP and future educational and occupational experiences.

Deeper investment in contracting rates and staff recruitment: Community Service Society of New York is a member and participates in ongoing meetings with a coalition of SYEP providers. During these meetings, providers share creative solutions for identifying, developing, and retaining staff. The coalition is deeply committed to improving the lives of young people and thinks outside the box when it comes to who they recruit and how they leverage existing resources. These providers are inventive and committed, making their resources stretch in miraculous ways, but this is not sustainable. Those who are hired to manage SYEP sites are doing difficult work which means they need competitive salaries. Improving the pay for these positions will go a long way towards recruitment of skilled personnel. We also believe that DYCD can support this work if they establish an SYEP staff recruiter position to bolster the efforts of providers.

The Summer Youth Employment Program is a great asset to our students and their families. Once again, we are excited about the growth of the program, and we want to see it continue to grow. CSS is ready to support that effort however it can, and we are happy to take your questions.

Notes

1. City Invests in Second Chances for Youth. April 12, 2012.

2. The Road to a Win for New York City Youth. January 11, 2013.

3. An Introduction to the World of Work: A Study of the Implementation and Impacts of New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program. April 2017.

4. How to Make Universal Summer Jobs a Reality in New York City: Lessons from Model Programs. October 2016.

Issues Covered

Opportunities for Youth