Fighting to improve education policies
Goodwill wants high school education accessible for all ages—Notre Dame economists are providing the data to get there
In Phoenix, Arizona, six high school graduates cross the stage in caps and gowns. They don’t look like high school graduates—all are well over 18 years old, and each person missed the opportunity to graduate on time for one reason or another. Just a few years ago, these six adults never would have had this opportunity, this moment. But thanks to Goodwill and with support from Notre Dame, these six graduates, along with countless more, now have access to a new future.
It’s inspirational, Betsy Delgado said.
Delgado is the chief mission and education officer for Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana. She’s also a former educator and knows just how important education is to creating a bright and lasting future. Her unique background brought her to Goodwill 13 years ago. When she began, Goodwill was partnering with WorkOne to find jobs for the underemployed. But the organizations noticed a revolving door of clients who would be offered a job, would get fired or quit, and then would come back asking for another job. The cycle would repeat again and again, Delgado recalled.
“We paused as an organization to kind of really understand what was underneath all of this and why we weren’t able to help these people, these adults, make a difference or a change in their lives. And when we looked at the statistics, we discovered that a very high percentage of them did not have their high school diploma.”
It’s true that most adults in this situation could study to take the GED, a test meant to check a box stating the person has the aptitude of a high school graduate, but would it set them up for greater success? Delgado recalled a study out of the University of Chicago that showed obtaining a GED did not yield better long-term success in terms of earnings, employment opportunities, or education. In the 2010 paper, the authors suggest that the problem with the GED is that while it measures scholastic aptitude, it fails to measure skills like persistence, motivation, and reliability, which better predict life outcomes. And although those skills seem innate, they are, in fact, teachable. So, the leaders of Goodwill wondered if they could create a high school tailored to adult learners and their unique challenges that would put graduates on a more successful trajectory.
Delgado recalled, “We thought, ‘Let’s figure out how to build a model that would embrace adults.’ It wouldn’t be like the traditional high school, but it would see these adults experiencing rigor, having coaches support them, having childcare on site, free transportation, so that they actually could eliminate all the barriers to be able to complete their high school diploma and be successful and move on with their lives and improve their economic circumstances for themselves and their children.”
The Goodwill Excel Center was born. The center is a tuition-free charter high school for adults that creates an individualized academic plan including necessary high school credits, industry-recognized certifications in fields such as health care and manufacturing, and college credits. There is on-site childcare. Every student is assigned a life coach to help them navigate hurdles like transportation needs, tutoring, scheduling, and other unexpected items that could derail their education. And it is generally completed in 12 to 18 months. The education is rigorous, Delgado noted, and that’s on purpose.
“We have a really rigorous curriculum because we want our graduates to be able to match up to any graduate in our states,” she said.
It seemed to be working. That first Excel Center in Indianapolis started graduating cohorts of students. So Goodwill built another Excel Center. And another. They knew they were onto something, but they lacked data to prove the efficacy of their method. And they needed concrete data if they were to grow into other states where legislation prohibited high school education for adults.
At the time, more than half of the 50 states had laws that restricted education funds to be used on students after they turned 21. At that point, many potential students were boxed out of a legitimate high school option. As Goodwill leaders eyed opportunities to change legislation state by state, they first needed to change minds and hearts about what they were doing.
That’s where Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) helped. LEO, an essential part of Notre Dame's new University-wide Poverty Initiative, is known for partnering with nonprofit organizations, service providers, and local governments—especially those dealing with poverty—to assess what programs work and what might not.
Patrick Turner, an associate research professor at LEO, detailed, “We partner research with the wonderful work being done with social service providers across the country. We bring in scientific evaluation methods to quantify the impact that they’re having on the lives of the clients that they serve, the clients who are experiencing homelessness or seeking job training or looking for a better life.”
Photos: Matt Cashore, University of Notre Dame
The LEO team was asked to assess the efficacy of the Excel Centers. Using data from Goodwill and the state of Indiana, the team was able to compare those who enrolled in an Excel Center and graduated, to those who started the program but did not complete it, to those who applied but did not enroll. The team found that although there was a slight dip in students’ earnings while actively in the program, within five years, those who graduated were earning 40 percent more than their peers. In total, Turner said, graduates see more than an $80,000 increase in earnings throughout their lifetimes.
“There are 18 million adults in the US that don’t have a high school diploma, and we don’t know a lot about how to best serve folks and help them be successful in the labor market,” Turner said. “One of the exciting things about this research project is that we’'ve been able to show and highlight a highly successful program that does have a big impact on the lives of the students that they serve. That furthers my hope of being a force for good in this world, that we can share that information and help grow those programs and serve more people.”
That data generated quite a force. In Arizona, for example, the LEO researchers helped write a testimony based on their results. They included that the return on investment was a shocking $20 to $1. That led to a change in legislation to remove the age barriers for those seeking a high school education and included a substantial investment to build Excel Centers. The first Excel Center in Arizona opened its doors in September 2022.
Thanks to Goodwill, and with support from Notre Dame, these graduates, along with countless more, now have access to a new future. (Photos: Lab for Economic Opportunities)
“Education is the No. 1 investment line in the state budget. Arizona was able to commit $12 million to the Excel Centers,” former governor Doug Ducey said. “What attracted me to the Excel Center model is that it allows equal opportunity for all. It says to someone that doesn’t have that high school diploma, that it’s attainable and there are people and support that will help you get there.”
Other states, including South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas, have also made noteworthy changes, and Goodwill hopes to have 85 operational Excel Centers by 2030.
“We’re also not just stopping there,” Turner said, highlighting that the partnership with Goodwill is ongoing. “There’s a number of people who apply to the school and never end up enrolling. There’s a number of people who start the school and don’t end up finishing. So I’m really excited about being able to work with the Excel Center to test interventions to help them better serve the students that come through their door so that more people can benefit from graduating and from earning their high school diploma.”
He noted ongoing work that is assessing the likelihood of graduation reducing the risk of engagement with the criminal justice system, which may further prove a big cost benefit to states. And he’s also keen to study the intergenerational impact of this program on the children of graduates, and whether graduation from the Excel Center makes it more likely for the next generation to graduate from high school, essentially breaking the cycle of intergenerational dropout.
The research gives credibility to what Goodwill is doing, Delgado said. “Now we can count ourselves as part of the 1 percent of nonprofits that have causal evidence and rigorous research behind what we do. What that does for you as an organization is, it builds confidence that you are truly doing what you say you’re going to do to help families really find their way out of poverty through education.”
“Notre Dame has been this huge blessing for us,” Delgado said. “We found the researchers, the economists at Notre Dame just to be the most amazing people.”
Credits
- Writer: Tara Hunt McMullen
- Photographers: Matt Cashore and Barbara Johnston