The GED Program in the 21st Century: Working Together for a Brighter Future in Career and College Readiness

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The GED Program in the 21st Century Working
Together for a Brighter Future in Career and
College Readiness

• National College Testing Association
• David Espinoza, University of Oregon
• Martin Kehe, GED Testing Service

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The Need for Adult and Postsecondary Education

• 30 million (10 of the population) people over
  the age of 16 in the United States can barely
  read and write in English.
• An additional 60 million (20 of the population)
  do not have adequate basic literacy skills for
  earning a living wage.
• Combined current funding supports instruction in
  basic literacy, ESL, adult secondary education,
  computer training, and vocational education for
  just 3 million adults.
• Source www.proliteracy.org

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The Current Environment

• Economy uncertainty (lingering downturn)
• Globalization of the labor market
• Need for postsecondary trainingcorrelating with
  employer demand for higher skill levels (READ
  college career readiness)
• Changing composition of the U.S. labor force

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The GED Reality The BIG Gap

• An estimated 39 million Americans lack a high
  school credential.
• Annually, 1.3 million U.S. students drop out of
  high school.
• 10.5 million of these Americans are age 18-34.
• The GED Test serves only 778,000 test takers and
  only 493,000 receive credentials each year.

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What We NeedGiven The Realities

• A test that certifies preparedness
• An integrated approach in which testing is an
  important but transitional step
• Diagnostics and additional toolsto place
  candidates to produce the best outcomes
• Use of alternative delivery platforms to ease
  capacity/access issues
• Recognition that all of these things will take
  TIME to address effectively.

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Adult and Postsecondary Educations Needs

• Effective solutions to access challenges
  (shrinking budgets, maxed facilities and capacity
  issues)
• Better tools and systems to support the diverse
  needs of adult learners
• Greater understanding, awareness and action by
  Federal State policy makers

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Our Vision for the Evolution of the GED Program
To
From

• Content aligned to 1999 high school curriculum
• Passing standard empirically set based on
  norm-referenced performance of graduating high
  school seniors
• Non-standardized paper-based test delivery
  channel
• Few instructional programs that demonstrate
  significant promise in accelerating proficiency
  gains
• Few organizations recognized as leading the field

• Rigorous content aligned to Common Core
  college/career-ready curriculum
• Proficiency levels based on criterion-referenced
  performance standards for both high school and
  college/career readiness
• Standardized computer-based test delivery channel
• Instructional programs with evidence-based
  practices incorporating accelerated learning
• Champions and exemplary organizations leading the
  field

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The GED 21st Century Initiative Primary
Objectives

• To contribute significantly to the nations goal
  of significantly increasing postsecondary
  completion rates
• To increase access to and attainment of
  postsecondary education (PSE) credentials for
  non-traditional adult learners by
• Adopting a college/career-ready performance
  standard and creating an assessment and a
  credential that indicates readiness
• Facilitating the development of a stronger
  system of educational supports for GED
  candidates and
• Creating the PSE pathways that give meaning to a
  GED college-/career-ready certification

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The GED 21st Century Initiative Pathways
Pathways to college/career-readiness and success
Attract
Accelerate Learning
Demon-strate
Connect
Attain
Ongoing formative assessment
Show Proficiency on Next-Gen GED Test
Entry into learning system
PSE careerattainment and beyond
Pathways to and supports for PSE career
Differen-tiated instruction
Customized curriculum
Learning Pre- assessment
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Drivers Realities
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GED Target Adult Population
Potential GED candidate population
15 Million
100

• US-born adults without a high school diploma or
  equivalent (10M)

80
US-born
dropouts
60
40

• Foreign-born adults without a high school diploma
  or equivalent (5M)

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Foreign-born
dropouts

• Homeschooled (0.24M)

0
Home-
schooled
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The Truth About Proficiency Levels
Equivalent EFL levels
EFL 6
EFL 5
EFL 4
EFL 3 and below
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Tackling the Proficiency Gap
Target proficiency
Projected proficiency
Time investmentfor preparation(total prep time)
Multiplier for accelerating proficiency (grade
level gain within total prep time)
Starting proficiency level (current grade level
proficiency)
College- and Career-ready proficiency
level(target grade level proficiency)

X

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Accelerated Learning

• Given the realities of the proficiency gap our
  learners face, approaches to accelerated learning
  need to be researched and tested
• GEDTS plans to launch a series of pilots to
  employ and evaluate accelerated learning with
  adult test takers
• Of varying ages
• Of varying proficiency challenge levels
• In varying learning environments
• Encompassing varying learning technologies

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The Near Term

• The 2002 Series will remain in the market for the
  next three to five years
• During that time, however, we will be
• Developing content frameworks for the new test
• Piloting Computer-based testing (CBT)
• Piloting accelerated learning tools in varied
  settings

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Transforming Our Reality
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Laying the Groundwork for the Future
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The GEDTS Goal
Ensuring Adult Learners are Career- and
College-Ready