This report was released in December but I just caught notice of it this week. The third in a series of research briefs that utilize data from the Longitudinal Study of Adult Learning (LSAL)*, which compared adult literacy development among adults who participated in adult education programs and those who did not over a lengthy period of time, this analysis of the data found that the rate of GED attainment was higher among individuals who participated in programs (35%) than those who did not (25%). This may seem like an unsurprising finding, but unsurprising or not, it’s important to be able to point to evidence that participating in a program makes a difference. You can download the entire brief here.

*LSAL randomly sampled about 1,000 high school dropouts and followed them for nearly a decade from 1998–2007. LSAL followed both participants and nonparticipants in Adult Basic Skills (ABS) programs, assessing their literacy skills and skill uses over long periods of time, along with changes in their social, educational, and economic status, offering a rich picture of adult literacy development.