By Caroline Porter
For more than seven decades, the GED has reigned as the gold
standard for high-school-equivalency certificates, a time-honored
way for dropouts, immigrants and late bloomers to demonstrate
familiarity with educational basics and get a foothold in the job
market.
But the new GED, which is more expensive in many states and
harder to pass for test takers, has provided an opening for
competing products. Already, 10 states have chosen an alternative
to the GED, seven additional states offer two or three tests, and
state officials in Washington and New Mexico are considering new
options.
The competition comes on the heels of a 2011 joint venture
between Pearson PLC and nonprofit American Council on Education,
which previously administered the GED and owns the intellectual
property. When the nonprofit realized in 2009 that it couldn't
cover the costs of a GED overhaul, which ranged from $40 million to
$50 million, it asked other testing groups to partner. Pearson was
the only one to agree.
Pearson and the council worked together to implement a
more-difficult, computer-based test in line with 2013 state
standards. States quickly started looking for substitutes to the
GED, which has a base price for test takers of $80.
"They built a Cadillac, and everyone wants a Chevy," said
Anthony Carnevale, an economist who studies education and the labor
market at Georgetown University.
But backers say there is merit in raising the bar, to give the
high-school equivalency more value in the job market. "I believe
the GED was becoming irrelevant," said Randy Trask, president of
GED Testing Service, referring to the old test, which was based on
1998 benchmarks. "It was not serving anyone well, especially people
who see this as a magical passport to a better life."
Now, others are jumping in. Educational Testing Service, a
nonprofit testing company, began offering its own high-school
equivalency exam, called the HiSET, last year, and aims to expand
beyond its current 13 states, marketing itself as the "more
accessible, affordable alternative."
McGraw-Hill Education now offers the Test Assessing Secondary
Completion, or TASC, test in nine states and is bullish about what
will come in future years. "There will be more states looking at
alternatives to the GED," said Peter Cohen, president of the U.S.
group at McGraw-Hill Education.
The exams' cost per student varies by state, depending on how
much each state subsidizes. The GED's base price is $80, the
HiSET's is $50, and the TASC's is $54. The latter two offer
paper-and-pencil versions, while the GED doesn't.
About 250,000 students took the GED in 2014, and 60% passed it,
down from about 820,000 students in 2013, with a 75% passing rate.
While GED officials say this precipitous drop is in part because
students rushed to take an older version of the GED in 2013,
critics believe the new GED is an unrealistic--and thus
unfair--test for adult learners.
David Spring, who founded the website called "Restore GED
Fairness" with his wife and fellow educator, Elizabeth Hanson, said
that the new GED test questions are too difficult for the average
high-school senior and put too much pressure on the GED
test-takers, many of whom need the credential to apply for
minimum-wage jobs.
"We're talking about people who want to work at McDonald's or as
a hairdresser," said Mr. Spring, a retired math teacher.
Economists and policy makers are torn over whether a tougher
test is good or bad.
"Some test takers may have the simple need to work at Starbucks,
they don't need to analyze a Shakespeare play," said Larry Condelli
of the Workforce and Lifelong Learning program at the
not-for-profit American Institutes for Research. "Then again, if
you give them a lesser education for a specific purpose, are you
really helping them?"
In general, employers support new ways of testing of basic
educational skills, as long as they don't stop people from taking
the test, said Andy Van Kleunen, chief executive of the National
Skills Coalition, a workforce policy organization that brings
together businesses, labor and education groups.
A better approach to help people get jobs is to combine training
in basic skills with vocational programs, he said. "Standalone
adult literacy programs do not do a great job of preparing people
for skilled jobs," he said.
Adult-learning instructor Marcia Leister has felt the impact of
the new GED test at her technical college in Bellingham, Wash., a
state where currently only the GED is offered. Of about 120
students she taught last year, about 10 people took the test, about
a quarter of the number in a typical year, and only one person
passed it, she said.
"My students are extremely frustrated by the new test," she
said. "They are losing hope."
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