City To Play Major Role In New GED Exam
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The GED test that prepares kids for college and careers is about to be modernized thanks to a three-year project based here in the city. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.Thirty-six million Americans and 1.6 million New Yorkers don't have a high school diploma. For many, their best option is to earn a GED, which is supposed to be equivalent. But for years, that hasn't been true. In New York, you need to write at only a sixth grade level to pass, and employers know that.
"Once you realize that it was originally developed to help returning World War II veterans take advantage of the GI Bill. Now our economy was very different back then. It was based on industry and agriculture," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says they've decided to finally remake the GED and to do the remaking in New York. The goal is to align the curriculum and exam with new national academic standards and with what students need to join today's workforce.
"American students are poorly prepared for success in today's globally competitive, knowledge based economy," Duncan said. "We need to urgently accelerate student learning to remain competitive in the 21st century."
So New York will be the laboratory for this national effort, long overdue. And the pilot will be funded by a $3 million grant from the MetLife Foundation.
It will involve planning, testing, and training teachers -- a major undertaking that won't be finished until 2014. Officials say they chose New York because it has a large GED program within the Department of Education, already serving 30,000 public school students who've chosen the GED over the diploma.
"It is already a well established program and it shows great potential for us to learn from this experience and then scale it up," said Molly Corbett Broad of the American Council on Education.
"Today reflects both a validation and an opportunity. A validation of the extraordinary work the district is doing and the opportunity to take it to a new level and be part of a national movement so we get real with our children," said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
It will take years before students across the country are able to benefit from an updated GED program. However, city officials say they're excited to work on figuring out what it should look like in the end.