Eric.ed.gov – GED 21st Century Learning Pathways Pilots. Final Report

For the nearly 39 million U.S. adults who do not have a high school diploma, the General Educational Development (GED) programs and exam have served as the main avenue for improving individuals’ skills and helping them earn a high school credential. However, few students who start these programs ever get this credential, and even fewer advance to the postsecondary education and higher-level training programs that could increase their earning potential. In response to this challenge, the American Council on Education (ACE) partnered with Pearson Inc. to release a new more rigorous GED test in 2014 that assessed the crucial thinking, writing, and analytical skills considered essential for success in today’s labor market. In addition, ACE partnered with the New York City Department of Education’s District 79 (D79), Office for Adult and Continuing Education (OACE), and MDRC to create the Learning Pathways Pilots, a project aimed at improving students’ preparation for this new more rigorous exam. The pilots focused on revising a K-12 writing curriculum (based on the Writers Express [WEX]) and an adult basic education math curriculum (based on Extending Mathematical Power [EMPower]) to align with the Common Core State Standards. This report details the findings from MDRC’s evaluation of the implementation of these curricula over the course of the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 academic years. Overall, the study found that the curricula were implemented broadly throughout both school districts and reached thousands of students. While the Learning Pathways Pilots were successful in implementing more rigorous curricula in adult education classrooms, the experience also points to several ways that adult education practices might be modified to further facilitate new curricular reforms. These include the development of shorter lesson sequences that align with adult students’ attendance patterns; providing additional out-of-classroom support to give absent students the opportunity to work on course materials; and increasing faculty participation in decision-making about curricula, which may foster instructors’ ownership of reforms.