WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) — The GED test will undergo an overhaul with the intention of improving the prospects of low-skilled workers in a high-tech U.S. job market, officials said.
The test’s largest overhaul in its 70-year-history will make it more difficult to pass in response to growing criticism that the exam has failed to offer a second chance for 39 million adult Americans without a high school diploma, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
“If we are not going to give them a chance to better their lives, we are giving them false hope,” said CT Turner, a spokesman for the GED Testing Service. “We are assigning them to a dead-end job.”
He said the new test has to be a “steppingstone” to college, mirroring what it was originally created to do for returning World War II veterans who wanted to take advantage of the GI Bill.
A 2011 study by the GED Testing Service found that 60 percent of test-takers planned to go to college, though just 43 percent enrolled. Of those who enrolled in a post-secondary education, about one third dropped out after one semester and only 12 percent graduated.
Without further education, the GED offers very little economic payoff for the test-takers, said Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
Why do we have GED tests? Why do we have alternative schools? A high school diploma used to indicate a student went thru a prescribed regimen of acedemics and completed it satisfactorily. Guess what, some people did not want to follow the rules, so society “enabled” them to go the easy route and made up some games they could play and still get the same prize. No different then food stamps or other welfare. Just giving in to people who want an easy ride on the road of life.
I think it was started back in the 60’s or perhaps earlier as a way for pregnant girls to get their high school diplomas because they had to drop out of public school. Back then, it was primarily young girls who got GED’s. Then they started calling them alternative schools and opening them up to anyone who needed a GED. I could be wrong about this, but that was my perception 50 years ago. I know several girls who were very smart in high school who got GED’s and went on to go to college back then. I’m not sure they offer classes for college-bound students now. Physics? Trig? Calc? Chemistry? I did talk to someone a few years ago who taught at the Alternative High School who just loved his or her job and found it very rewarding. I wish I could remember who that was.
One thing I can say from personal experience is that I enjoyed learning a lot more once I graduated from college than I did while I was in college. There was too much pressure and stress in that environment to do too much in too short a time. After I graduated, I started taking 1 business class a semester and really thrived on that schedule. I had time to really concentrate on one thing at a time, have a social life, and get some sleep! My thought processes had also become much more organized and focused.
@Katie-I know for a fact that the GED was being used in 1962 and it wasn’t just for pregnant girls. The test classes were about 50/50. Back in the day it was series of five test that you had to score at least 75% to get your GED. There were no classes that prepared you for the test, you just went and took it. That is why it was called the General Equivalency Diploma. The cost at that time was $10.00 as I recall. It was designed to test the individual to see if they had the knowledge of a high school graduate. I think it is altogether different now.
Well, I’m talking about GED schooling that was in place for people who wanted to finish their high school studies to get their GED. There must have been 2 different programs. One to just take a test to get a GED and one for those who didn’t pass the test so they could get enough schooling to pass it.
@Katie-I believe you might be correct. I know there was a test that had to be taken first. There were five different test on five different subjects. If you didn’t pass any of the test you could go to class to get up to speed and then retest.
I have been very upset that the FBI did not catch Tamerlin Tsarnaev when he went back to Russia for 6 months. It turns out that they didn’t catch him because his name was misspelled. Now, no one has said, to my knowledge, who misspelled his name. We don’t know if he misspelled it on purpose or an airline employee did it. Also, there was nothing in place by the FBI to catch alternate spellings. How sorry is that scenario?
If the airline employee misspelled it, this proves my point that too many of people in our country do not care about perfection when it should really matter! Also, the person who checked his passport should have DEFINITELY caught the difference between the spelling on the ticket and the spelling on the passport. FAIL. Doesn’t that make you all worry about the quality of the people who are in charge of our safety in this country? People just really don’t give a crap and do not double and triple check for accuracy. But it seems like they spend 2 minutes on my passport and ticket with a very simple spelling. So even if the FBI didn’t drop the ball, the TSA certainly appears to have done so.
We need to teach the importance of paying attention to detail to our children in every area of their lives, whether it is making sure their car insurance is current or that they do their jobs at an airline as perfectly as they can all the time. People’s lives may depend on how well they pay attention or how well they tend to their personal and job details. Slacking off is NOT an option in life. Getting a high school graduation or a more difficult GED will help them learn these skills and grow up a little. Don’t let them learn the hard way.
Without further education, the GED offers very little economic payoff. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the people who take the test are high school drop outs for one reason or another. They need the GED to get any type of job today. No one hires without a high school diploma or GED. If you make the test harder you have just created a whole bunch of people that can no longer get jobs. This is part of what is wrong with our country today. Not everyone is college material but that doesn’t mean they can’t be productive parts of society. Making the test harder serves no purpose and cost more money.
I agree that this is certainly part of what is wrong with our country, but I disagree increasing the difficulty of the GED is the problem.
The days when you could make a living lugging around doors or stamping bumpers are gone. All the low skill, low brain power jobs are gone and are not coming back.
This leaves us with a quite a predicament; what to do with all the “low-skill” (i.e. dumb) people. We no longer have the manufacturing infrastructure to
support these jobs.
A more cynical person (Ayn Rand conservative nutcases) would suggest a darwinian approach to let them simply fend for themselves. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your views, the US provides for those unable to provide for themselves.
This leave us with quite the problem; what do we do with these economically useless people? I do not have the answer.
@Calvin R.-That was exactly my point. If you make it tougher then you have less people taking the test or passing the test. Then what do you do with the people who don’t have a GED? I disagree that there are not any jobs for these people. There are still roofing jobs, siding jobs, construction jobs, and so forth. But, without a GED you are locked out of better jobs. Most people with a GED are not going to college.
We have moved from an agrarian economy to a technological economy. A GED is no longer adequate to function in this world, as I see with some people with high school degrees who can’t do simple math or know the difference between its and it’s or their, there, and they’re. I can tell you that I don’t want construction workers who can’t measure decently, don’t have common sense, and, believe me, I’ve been through enough construction jobs to know that all some of those workers can do is hand the smart guy a hammer because they don’t catch on. If they didn’t want to pay attention in high school, usually they won’t give a crap about a GED and will usually do the bare minimum, which is pretty useless. At least make it mean something by making them learn something useful and pass a test that includes information that means they had to actually work at getting their degree instead of just showing up. We have already dumbed down our society. Let’s not continue down that road. We need to make our children smarter in everyday skills, not let them skate through. It’s time children start to realize that you can’t get a job without a high school diploma or a GOOD QUALITY GED. So stay in school and take advantage of the best free thing you will ever be offered in life!