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Forum Post: Why Changing The GED To Incorporate Common Core Worries Adult Educators

Posted 11 years ago on March 21, 2013, 9:31 a.m. EST by GirlFriday (17435)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

The nationwide move towards the Common Core State Standards isn’t just changing expectations for students in high school classrooms. It’s also raising the bar for those who dropped out.

The GED Testing Service is updating their high school equivalency exam to reflect the new, nationally-crafted academic standards 46 states around the country have — at least in part — adopted.

“Rumor is that it’s going to be much harder,” says Dawn Grage, who has been teaching GED classes in Indiana’s prisons for more than 20 years. “A lot of these guys have enough struggles getting through the current GED. And if it makes it harder and with computers, the older gentlemen … there are some guys who have never touched a computer.”

The Department of Corrections plans to start pushing teachers to implement Common Core in their classrooms as early as this spring, and helping prisoners pass the GED is a major incentive to start sooner rather than later.

UNCERTAINTY OVER TEST CONTENT WORRIES TEACHERS

Changes to the GED and to prison classroom instruction are part of larger shifts in education. In Indiana, Common Core standards are already being used in mainstream schools in kindergarten through 2nd grade.

But GED teachers like Dawn Grage don’t feel prepared for the Common Core shift, in part because they don’t know what will be on the new test.

To add to the uncertainty, the Department of Workforce Development isn’t sure whether they’ll be offering the GED or whether they will sign a contract with one of the high school equivalency exams other companies have only recently begun developing.

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2 Comments


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[-] 2 points by Builder (4202) 11 years ago

Will it improve general knowledge?

There's certainly gaping holes appearing in general intellect.

[-] 2 points by GirlFriday (17435) 10 years ago

Oh, I did lol.

I don't know. You're asking me to guestimate on one article that I have read that describes the concerns of one teacher for a test that nobody is sure what will be on. I can see where the move to computers would present a very real problem. If we were discussing the outside education system in a k-12 setting then I would have something to go on. It destroys critical thinking skills because you are simply teaching to the test and is more of the same.

This being a GED program it is all about teaching to the test. That said, computer skills are almost a different language. Most of us hit our keyboards without pecking out one key at a time. I imagine that it is quite like ELL/ESL where you are fighting two different issues that under ordinary circumstances would not be a problem--the language and the material.

This particular state got rid of the college education program due to budget cuts and is in cahoots with Ball State University. To be honest, that is a university that pops up with privatization and over time anything that has come out of it I completely disregard and for many they have become the laughingstock of universities. They sliced their own throats in the responses given to the failure of charter schools. Instead they have opted for vocational training into low wage jobs and if under 35---coal mining. So, developing critical thinking skills is out there as well.