GED overhaul leaves Michiganders behind

Sitting inside the New Prospect Learning Lab, a free GED (General Educational Development) testing laboratory on Livernois Avenue in Deroit that offers GED prep and a host of other adult education programs, 32-year-old Tiffany Collier emphasizes how important it is for her to get her diploma. Collier wants to be a nurse — "I love helping people"— a job she can't even consider without a GED.

She dropped out of high school around 15 years ago, pointing to a desire so many students consider at least once as the years of secondary education tick by: She wanted to be out, older, and done with school. Though she doesn't say as much, she essentially just lost interest and then quit.

"I was trying to grow up too fast," she says. Collier started thinking about getting her GED because she wanted to set an example for her three children. "I want to make them proud," she says.

But it's no easy task. Collier has a full load to deal with each day. She's a stay-at-home mom who lives in Warren with three children, a husband, and a mother who's diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"It's a learning experience," she says.

Collier is a charming woman with an infectious smile and has been studying for the four-part GED test since October 2014. She has high hopes of beginning a section or two in the coming weeks. Passing any sections after just three months of studying would be impressive: A new test was released in January 2014, and for many, it's taking much longer to make enough progress through all four sections, let alone one.

While her tutors acknowledge Collier has a determination to get her GED not commonly seen among others studying for their diploma this year, the test has caused some serious issues worth considering. Tutors say the old test, which had been around since 2002, usually required about six months of studying — about three to six hours a week — for a person of average intelligence to have a chance of passing. But the test changes, which implemented the controversial Common Core standards in many states and required the exam to be taken online instead of on paper, has made passing the GED test more difficult than most can remember.

The numbers are shocking: In the United States, according to the GED Testing Service, 401,388 people earned a GED in 2012, and about 540,000 in 2013. In 2014, according to the latest numbers obtained by Metro Times, only about 55,000 passed nationally, though a few sectors have yet to be included in that statistic. Still, there was about a 90 percent drop-off from 2013.

And there are serious repercussions. As national economic policy is emphasizing more adult education programs, and most jobs (even Walmart shelf stockers) require a high school diploma, the new GED test has essentially moved the goal posts way back. And that includes the incarcerated, where so many prison re-entry education programs include getting the high school dropout population to pass the GED test.

Collier knows the test is hard but doesn't have much perspective on how it has changed; it's a priority no matter what. "It's actually a good challenge," she says, adding, "I have a goal I've set. I want to go to nursing school as soon as possible.

"I know I'll fight until the end."

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Has the GED test always been hard? Some would say so. Especially if you are 20 years or more removed from high school and haven't thought of quadratic equations or Thomas Jefferson's verbiage since then. But for those trying to take the GED test in 2014, passage of the high school equivalency is probably less likely than at any other point in the 73-year history of the test.

The changes were made to bring the test up to date, in some people's eyes. That meant adapting the test to reflect the Common Core standards being taught in most high schools across the country, doing it online only and not on paper, and requiring more essays. The results have been dramatic.

Based upon preliminary findings by MT, about 350,000 fewer people will earn a GED nationally than in 2012, and close to 500,000 fewer than last year. Before the test changes, the GED accounted for 12 percent of all the high school diplomas awarded each year.

In Michigan, 10,290 passed the test in 2012, and 13,641 did so in 2013, but only 1,472 passed in 2014.

Other states have similar rates. The drop-off in Texas was about 86 percent; Florida, about 77 percent; in Michigan, those numbers work out to about 88 percent.

GED rates for prisoners in Michigan, however, don't appear to have been impacted by the changes: In 2012, 1,548 prisoners in the Michigan Department of Corrections earned a GED. The following year there was an increase to 2,467, and 2014 remained about the same, according to Chris Gautz, the department's spokesman. Unlike most states, in order to be paroled in Michigan, a prisoner serving a minimum two-year sentence for any crime committed after December 1998 must earn a high school diploma or GED certificate, Gautz says, though there is the possibility for an exemption.

Still, the problems with the test are myriad. Many think it's too hard, too focused on algebra and essays, too much analysis of history instead of knowing historical facts. But the main issue is: Who is the GED test for and what should it measure? Should it be geared toward determining if someone has the skills to make it in college, or the skills necessary to be employed and to move up to a better job? The GED has always struggled with servicing both groups, but right now, most GED test teachers feel the test has moved too far into measuring college preparedness.

"Raising the standards was an important thing to do, but without adequate teacher training and a significant investment in current technology, it left adult and correctional education students even further behind in educational achievement," says Stephen J. Steurer, executive director of the Correctional Education Association, the largest prison educational organization in the country. "It is a national tragedy that will continue to have repercussions for years."

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When it was announced a few years ago that the test would change Jan. 1, 2014, academic and educational consultants overseeing the new version predicted a slight downturn in passage rates and overall test takers. The reasoning: So many people would try to pass the test in 2013 because any sections they had previously passed wouldn't carry over once the new test began. This is why the number of people who passed the GED was slightly higher in 2013 than in 2012.

But those who have taught the test for a long time say the new test is so radically different that the dip in passage rate will not be a short blip as students and tutors adjust to it. "When you have 40-year math teachers scratching their heads ... it's really hard," says Shelly Ester, site director of the New Prospect Learning Lab, where Collier is tutored. "It requires a higher order of thinking.

"It's kind of a nightmare for some people."

It's not as if the problems with the new test were unexpected, either: Ester, a former Detroit Public Schools teacher, and her colleague, Sharon Rowe, technical resources manager of the New Prospect Learning Lab, say they sounded the alarm when they saw what the new test would entail when the announcement came in 2012. They immediately said it would be too hard. But besides calls for alarm from some in the academic community, little attention was paid to the changes.

And there is another reason for the small number of people passing the GED test in 2014: Hardly anyone took it. And that has as much to do with how the test is administered than the content. The previous test was administered with pen and paper, but this version can only be taken on a computer. And here's the kicker: More than half the people in the U.S. who do not have a high school diploma do not have a laptop or desktop computer at home. The same number, not surprisingly, do not have Internet access either.

Many of those who need a GED the most — those without a high school diploma and with a poverty-rate income — do not have a computer or Internet access, which puts them far, far behind from the start for two reasons: It's hard to build keyboard and mouse skills for a timed test without practice, and the GED Testing Service (the company that administers the test) makes it maddeningly hard even to print sample questions to study at home.

To get sample tests, students must have access to the Internet to take them, pay $6 for each sample test section with a credit card (if their tutoring program won't buy it for them, and most don't), and have an active email account. All of that makes having a computer and Internet access paramount to passage.

"It's people who don't have a high school diploma, and without a high school diploma, you're not making a lot of money," Rowe says. The test in Michigan used to cost roughly $30, depending on how much in additional fees was tacked on by testing centers. Now, the cost is closer to $150. As Rowe and Ester put it, this amounts to additional barriers for those who already have to deal with the day-to-day grind of life.

While a certain lack of access makes studying for the GED harder, the content itself makes it even more difficult.

And that raises the question that has dogged the GED test since its inception after World War II: Is the primary purpose of the test to measure a student's college preparedness? Or is it a measure of a dropout's willingness to achieve a goal that makes them more attractive to employers?

In other words, is the GED designed to measure whether a student can handle Jane Austen novels and polynomial equations, or whether that person has the wherewithal to stock shelves at Walmart or hang drywall? The current test suggests it is the former that seems to be more important. And while the old test seemed to have some "just showing up" success rate measurement attached, which in some eyes was a practical way to administer the GED, the new one seems to have none of that.

Put differently, we all would agree that high school students need to know more before entering college and that sound math and language skills are part of that. But are we going to ace out a whole group of people from getting a GED because some college administrators don't think their incoming students know enough algebra?

"What I've noticed more than anything is that the participation rates are shockingly low this year over previous years, so the word has gotten out that it is extremely hard," says Stan Jones, president of Complete College America, a nonprofit based in Indianapolis that works with states to get more of the poor and disadvantaged into college.

"The way I see it, they have effectively gutted the GED program by these changes they have made," Jones says. "Adult students who have been out of high school for a while aren't passing this test. There needs to be a viable option for older adults to get into college and move up in the job market, and the changes made this year have greatly diminished the GED as a pathway to get to that goal."

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The GED test sprang out of World War II. In 1942, when Congress lowered the draft age from 21 to 18, it meant some high school students were put into military service. When the war was over and the GI Bill was passed to pay for veterans' college education, there was a need to figure out what to do with the soldiers whose high school education was interrupted by the war. They knew they couldn't send 21-year-olds who had landed on the beaches at Iwo Jima back to high school to finish up.

So a test was devised but not one that just measured academic skill sets. It was designed in more practical ways, testing for those noncognitive or common-sense life skills veterans had learned during the war. So it was a mixed bag when it began, attempting to balance and give credit for the knowledge obtained by the test taker outside of school in the real world.

Over time, the GED grew substantially with help from college administrators. It was seen as a second-chance diploma (a Good Enough Diploma, as many joked), and, over time, all 50 states accepted the GED test. It grew particularly quickly in the 1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty used GED certification as a way to promote more high school graduates among students who may have had to quit high school and go to work due to poverty issues.

The test has changed four times since its inception, the last in 2002. Each time the changes were made to keep up with changes in education. Sometimes the changes meant more math, sometimes more essay writing, mainly because college educators wanted some assurances that their GED students would have the necessary skills to handle the rigors of the post-secondary world. And over the years the GED was overseen by the American Council on Education (ACE), which represents college presidents and administrators.

As part of the changes this time around, the test was developed and overseen by a joint venture between the nonprofit ACE and the for-profit testing company Pearson VUE through GED Testing Service.

The joint venture was very late in getting teaching materials to programs for student preparation, with many centers not receiving them until November 2013, just two months before the new test took effect.

A small sample test is offered online for free, but to get a larger sample of questions (about half the size of the actual test, containing four sections), prospective testers pony up $6 per section. So in theory, it could cost a student $168 to take two sample tests and the actual test one time.

The higher costs and online-only service represent the need to offer better and quicker responses to how the student has done on the test, according to C.T. Turner, GED Testing Service spokesman. "We heard from testers that there wasn't a flexibility under the old system that would let the test takers know with certainty what progress they were making," he says. "This system of doing it online lets them know instantly what they got right and what they missed and what they need to do to improve."

As far as getting rid of the pen-and-paper approach, Turner says the decision "was made to make sure those passing the test had the computer skills which reflected college and career readiness." But when asked why the test seemed to not test technology knowledge but use of a keyboard and mouse, which may be far less used with the advancement of touch-screen technology and voice activation, Turner says, "We are measuring what a student who graduates from high school now has to be proficient in, and knowing how to use a computer is part of that."

And that is a big part of the controversy over the test. In the past, the GED had not been strictly a measure of what a high school grad's cognitive skill set was from that time period but leaned a bit toward crediting the older test taker's life experience. But those defending the changes said over and over that to make the GED easier than what the high school student needed to know to graduate would be "unfair" to those high school students, along with causing undue remedial classes if the GED passers wanted to go to college.

Administrators argue you can't just give a GED to a person who shows up to classes for a number of months and then can sign their name in crayon.

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The Common Core standards are the driving force behind the GED test's content changes and are somewhat difficult to explain. For years, many college educators thought high schools were not preparing their graduates well enough for college curricula, and there was a movement to rectify that. In the end, basically, rote learning was replaced by analysis, placing a greater importance on why facts were relevant and how they could be used, not what they were.

They first began getting traction in the mid-1990s among university presidents who thought their freshman students were ill prepared. By the late 2000s, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates started championing educational changes through his foundation. Some 44 states eventually adopted the standards, though a dozen or so are now rethinking their educational policies, sometimes by way of reflection on how it has performed, sometimes by way of conservative backlash at what the fringes claim as lefty conspiratorial inroads into schools.

Along the way, the thought process went like this: If the country were to change what students were expected to know upon graduation from high school, then the test that allowed dropouts to graduate must also reflect those changes. The problem in that assessment: Only 40 percent of those who passed the GED went on to any higher educational pursuits, and of those, only a small fraction (single-digit percentages according to most studies) attended college for more than a year. The vast majority of those taking the GED were doing so for employment opportunities.

Measuring job-ready skills was an afterthought in the Common Core standards from the beginning. "The workplace" aspect of the standards is only mentioned at the end of the executive summary in a cursory manner in an essay called "The American Diploma Project," one of the early Common Core studies published in 2004:

"States have developed high school assessments without much regard for what colleges need, and colleges use admissions and placement exams that are disconnected from the curriculum students study in high school. The result is too many tests and a mixed set of messages to students, parents, and teachers about which ones matter most. States must streamline their assessment systems so that high school graduation and college admissions and placement decisions are based on student achievement of college and workplace readiness content."

A heavily shared Facebook post earlier this year from a frustrated parent illustrates the controversy over the standards. The father published a picture of a homework assignment for his fifth-grader: Subtract 316 from 427. Instead of stacking the two numbers on top of each other and subtracting vertically to reach 111, the assignment wanted the elementary school student to use a linear approach, where the student would get the answer by subtracting 100 from 427 three times, then 10 once, then one six times.

The father wrote to the teacher, as a frustrated parent and an electrical engineer, that he couldn't get the right answer using the Common Core approach. "In the real world, simplification is valued over complication," he added.

GED tutors and teachers echo his sentiment — that the standards overcomplicate the test. The math portion, for example, used to include fairly straightforward questions without dipping into wordy presentations and ventured little beyond basic algebra. The new test emphasizes more algebra and geometry, as well as polynomials, graphing, and quadratic equations. A question from a sample test illustrates the verbose nature of the problems:

The 2014 test "offers three times as much math than the previous GED test," says Roberta Bivens, a tutor at Pro-Literacy Detroit.

The science section pushed students further too. One sample question asks the test taker to interpret, via an equation, whether energy is stored, created, or produced when glucose, water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are combined. The old test, tutors say, required the students to know some elements on the periodic table but did not have them analyze how the elements reacted with each other.

And in the writing portion of the test, the previous test asked for one personal essay, the topic of which might be: "Who is someone you think is successful and why?" The purpose of the essay was to see if the respondent knew how to put nouns, verbs, and prepositions in proper order. In other words, it tried to determine if could you understand what they were saying, but it didn't really care about the content.

But the new test flips that around. There are now two essays, and they are graded not on grammar but on reasoning. For example, one of the sample questions in the language portion of the test asks the tester to read two essays on daylight saving time — one in favor, one against — and then write an essay about which one is better and why. Another example is writing an essay about the importance of the concept of "sustainability" within the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Another asks the test taker whether a school's decision to expel a student refusing to salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance is covered by Freedom of Religion or Freedom of Speech, and how Jefferson's writing fits into the question at hand. The essay will be judged, in part, on "your own knowledge of the enduring issue and the circumstances surrounding the case to support your analysis."

And again, grading is focused on analysis and interpretation rather than sentence structure, and the GED website says a passing essay might exhibit "draft writing." "We do not hold test takers to a standard of very formal conventions at all," it says. "Rather, we understand that they have minimal time for proofreading and we can accept diction that is significantly more casual than, for example, what might be required on a résumé cover letter. The language requirements are not as high as 'edited American English.'"

So the test measures knowledge of how many tiny cell hairs can fit on a slide, the energy production of an equation, Jefferson's analysis of a West Virginia court case, and interpretation of the concept of environmental sustainability. All in four test sections that have to be completed in about seven hours. On a computer. By people who may have limited computer skills. And no spell check.

***

Nina Allen has been studying for the GED at the New Prospect Learning Lab since 2011. She is 51 and works for a window cleaning company. By her own account, she's still far off from being able to pass the sections. Allen wants to be able to apply for college and have a shot at a decent-paying job, the kind she's been unable to obtain due to the lack of a GED. She knows it's integral to her future.

"I'd feel so much better if I could get it," she says by phone.

Allen, a Detroit native, dropped out of high school her freshman year in 1982, shortly after her mother passed away. Her aunt took her in, she says, but didn't have the money to give her fresh clothes and school essentials. "I didn't want to go because I was so embarrassed."

Allen says the practice tests have helped her understand the questions at-hand, but "I'm just so busy, I'm not on it like I should be."

She adds, on her desire to get her GED: "I can taste it, I want it so bad."

Rowe and Ester point out that most people who take the test just want to land a better job. The two struggle with individuals who are working menial jobs and can't seem to find the time to come in and prepare longer. "We want to stress to them, 'If you want to get a better job, you have to get a GED.'"

John Eric Humphries, a Ph.D. candidate in education at the University of Chicago and co-author of The Myth of Achievement Tests (University of Chicago Press, 2014) says the key warning sign is not how few are passing but how few are taking the new test. "The most shocking thing is that people taking it has plummeted," he says. "And we have to find out the reason for that. Is it the computer skills needed, the cost, or the content, or a combination?"

Humphries thinks the problem is not so much the Common Core standards used for the questions "because this is a fair test of what graduates of high school should know, and if that is how we determine math or English or computer skills, the GED should be a reflection of that. Over time the GED instructors and the students will catch up with that.

"But the real problem is that we use the same assessment for a job parking cars as we do for getting into college with the current GED. Those are completely different tasks and different questions we should be using. But we use the same test for both."

There has been movement through the years to create different tests to measure different abilities, and the notion of a GED for college admissions and GED for work qualifications has been bandied about. Ten states have either opted out of the Pearson test and offer one of two competing tests, or offer all three.

While the numbers have fallen off, Michigan's testing volume and passing rates reflect national trends, says Keenan Wade, manager of the Michigan Workforce Development Agency, which facilitates the GED test in the state. He also says, historically, testing volume drops the year a revamped test is introduced. He says evidence from local adult education programs suggests an improving economy may factor in to the drop this year, as well.

It hasn't been a typical drop, however, with nationwide averages showing a more than 90 percent decrease, says Amy Amador, executive director of the Mercy Education Center in Detroit, another GED testing and prep center.

"So while you expect some drop because you have some people who are going to push to finish the prior year, that's the pretty significant drop," she says, emphasizing how "the GED is such a barrier for our students, for adults to get employment. That's the threshold criteria for a lot of employers."

And folks seeking progression from menial jobs to better employment aren't the only ones whose future fates are hinged to the test.

Studies have shown that prison recidivism rates decrease by about 30 percent if the incarcerated take educational programs while locked up. And for every dollar spent on education, the savings is $4 to $5 in future costs because they stay out more.

"We have seen that doing education programs for those in prison is a good investment, but if they aren't seeing a reasonable payoff to their efforts, there is a real danger that they aren't going to perhaps buy into other changes they need to make," says senior researcher at Rand Corp., Lois Davis, who has studied education programs in prisons.

But the problem for Ester and Rowe from the New Prospect Learning Lab is that we are pushing a group out of the equation that doesn't need any more shoving out.

Says Ester: "The requirements of the test are higher than high school requirements," so test takers are, ostensibly, better prepared for college, when some may simply want to find a better job.

The perception of the GED when she was younger, Ester says, is that, if you passed the sixth grade, you could pass the test.

"That's not even the case," she says. "It's not magic." — mt

*The 2014 GED statistics are based upon information from the state agencies that oversee the testing and is the testing data for the year up to late October and early November 2014, depending on the agency.