Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesEducation Technology

Creating an Adult Education Program for the 40 Million Adults without a High School Diploma

Life is full of challenges. Often, it can take a while to learn how to overcome and succeed in the challenges presented to us. For Dr. Howard Liebman, CEO of Smart Horizons Career Online Education (SHCOE) and Kari Greenfield, VP – Academic Partnerships, accomplishments coincide with a high GSD index – get stuff done. DisruptED…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Education Technology teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Share

Free workspace

Turn your Education Technology expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI in a free MarketScale workspace. Qualifying companies also get one professional video edit a month. No credit card.

Try it Free

Life is full of challenges. Often, it can take a while to learn how to overcome and succeed in the challenges presented to us. For Dr. Howard Liebman, CEO of Smart Horizons Career Online Education (SHCOE) and Kari Greenfield, VP – Academic Partnerships, accomplishments coincide with a high GSD index – get stuff done. DisruptED hosts Ron Stefanski and Dr. Caesar Mickens invited Dr. Liebman and Greenfield to share how their mindsets help them overcome stifled progress along the education spectrum.

“I think, you know, passion is important because if you’re going to try mindsets and you’re going to change schemas of thinking you really have to be passionate about what you’re trying to do,” stated Dr. Liebman.

Disruption along the traditional education system can be extremely positive. For Dr. Liebman and Greenfield, this meant building a program that helps to re-engage adults back into the educational system to complete their high school diploma.

Dr. Liebman noted, “There’s 40 million adults in the country who don’t have a high school diploma. If we’re going to reengage that we’ve got to take a very tactical and strategic approach to how we’re going to do that moving forward.”

To do this, SHCOE designs their program around mitigating the traditional flight stimula presented in students’ brains, “We want to eliminate that stimula in the brain to activate the flight [response],” Dr. Liebman said, and to do this, “Our students declare a major upon point of enrollment.” In addition to taking just their major over the first four months, SHCOE also provides a relatable academic coach to help students re-engage.

Greenfield noted that many SHCOE students lead busy lives, “Our average age student is mid-30s, 70% are women…63% of our students are parents…these are busy individuals…”

Through SHCOE, students are able to learn occupational skills and obtain their GED to provide a better life for themselves and their families.

The City of Dayton has a New Vision to Make Education Equitable

Making Workforce Training Available to Communities that Need it Most

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Education Technology starts with a company putting its implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Procurement teams read long before they ever call, and your implementers get to answer their questions first.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Education Technology, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Education Technology: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Education Technology buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free plan

You just read one Education Technology expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners into the articles, video, and social content Education Technology buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale workspace, up to 10 people
One professional video edit a month for qualifying companies
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
$0. No credit card. Company confirmation required.

More Education Technology Insights

Hermantown High School to offer two hybrid dual-credit CTE courses with Dunwoody in fall 2026, including VR labs for DC Circuits

Hermantown High School to offer two hybrid dual-credit CTE courses with Dunwoody in fall 2026, including VR labs for DC Circuits

Hermantown High School plans to add two hybrid CTE courses with Dunwoody College of Technology in fall 2026, with dual credit and high school credit. Fundamentals of DC Circuits includes VR vision goggles for parts of the lab work.

  • 01Two hybrid CTE courses with dual high school and Dunwoody college credit launch at Hermantown High School in fall 2026.
  • 02Fundamentals of DC Circuits students use virtual reality vision goggles for portions of lab work.
  • 03MPR News reported Dunwoody is launching a fall pilot in six Minnesota school districts to bring college-level technical classes into high schools.

Sep 23, 2026

Morgan State taps Google’s GPAR GPUs to expand research capacity

Morgan State taps Google’s GPAR GPUs to expand research capacity

Morgan State University and Google Public Sector announced a collaboration to expand research capacity using Google Public Sector’s Program for Accelerated Research (GPAR). Morgan State says GPAR will provide high-performance GPU compute resources to support research areas including AI, cybersecurity, climate science and health sciences, alongside Google Cloud platforms and NVIDIA infrastructure. Superpower Daily reported that Morgan’s in-house Obsidian AI platform is intended to keep governance, security and accountability with the university while Google supplies underlying computing capacity and cloud services.

  • 01Morgan State's Obsidian AI platform serves as the governance and security control layer while Google provides GPU compute capacity and cloud infrastructure for research.
  • 02The partnership targets compliance-heavy, federally funded research through Google Cloud security tools including SecOps and Mandiant solutions.
  • 03Morgan State says it will establish a Google-focused Center of Excellence for cloud computing, AI adoption and workforce development, with students expected to gain exposure to industry-recognized Google credentials.

Sep 23, 2026

Waiting for persistent absence flags leaves schools too late, Warwick warns

Waiting for persistent absence flags leaves schools too late, Warwick warns

Melissa Warwick of A Star Attendance told the CPOMS Safeguarding in Focus podcast that relying on persistent-absence thresholds can come too late. She wants attendance processes ready on day one in September, with systems flagging pattern changes so staff can spend time with families. EdTech Magazine reported Dunkirk City School District’s chronic absence fell from 38%+ to 20% a year after it adopted an AI attendance tool.

  • 01EdTech Magazine reported that New York’s Dunkirk City School District saw chronic absence fall from 38%+ to 20% a year after adopting an AI system to track attendance and text parents, with patterns flagged for staff to follow up.
  • 02Attendance processes need the same September readiness as timetables: who is told when a child does not arrive on day one, who follows up, and at what point it becomes a safeguarding concern.

Sep 22, 2026

Explore More Education Technology Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Education Technology.

Browse Education Technology Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Education Technology and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512