Technology and Education

Los Angeles Public Library to Offer High School Equivalency Program

/ The Old Crank

AP reporter Julie Watson reports that the Los Angeles Public Library will be partnering with educational publisher Cengage Learning to offer a high school diploma program for adults and out-of-school youth—reportedly the first time a public library system has offered such a program. The library hopes to grant high school diplomas to 150 adults in the first year.

According to Watson, the library’s director, John Szabo, has already introduced 850 online courses for continuing education and  a program that helps immigrants complete the requirements for U.S. citizenship.

It ail be interesting to see how this all plays out. It’s clear from Cengage’s press release that they expect to bring the program to other public libraries across the country.

It also marks the entry of Cengage Learning into the high school equivalency credential market.

The World Did Not End on January 1st

/ The Old Crank

I get the feeling from talking to reporters covering the GED revamp that some are working under the assumption that the entire adult education system is in the process of imploding in the wake of the official launch of the new test at the start of the year.

The GED test has typically undergone a revision every decade or so. True, the 2014 changes, particularly the switch to a computer-only exam, and the increase in the cost, are likely to have more dramatic effects than previous revisions, but those effects are going to roll out gradually over the course of the next few years. We don’t know yet, for example, the extent to which computer-based testing will be a barrier for some who want to take the test, and we won’t really know—beyond individual anecdotes—until the new exam has been in place for a few years. In the short terms, there will be plenty of individual stories suggesting that the critics are right, and also many success stories (you can count on the GED Testing Service publicizing the success stories!)—but until we can study overall trends over a period of at least a few years, I would caution people from drawing broad conclusions from individual stories. (Not that I think we should ignore the stories—I’m definitely going to keep passing them along—I just think we need to understand the limitations this kind of evidence.)

We also won’t know for a while whether the efforts to align test content with new common academic standards for high schools is making much of difference to adult leaners, or providing more value to the high school credentials they earn by virtue of passing one of these exams. Reporters need to be skeptical of claims made by anyone before a reasonable amount of data is in. That holds true not just for the GED folks, but their competitors as well: CTB/McGraw-Hill’s TASC exam, and the Educational Testing Service’s HiSET.

I’ve been critical of the GED Testing Service’s rollout of the new test. Early on, I think even they would agree that communication with state adult education offices and the field was not great. I worry about how the switch from a non-profit business model to a for-profit business model in a marketplace with limited resources is going to work. The GED Testing Service’s aggressive marketing campaign has been, at best, an odd fit in the adult education world. I’m dubious about claims made by computer-based testing proponents that preparing for a computer-based exam provides learners with “real-world” computer skills much beyond the skills required to take a test on a computer—again, until more evidence is in. I’m definitely worried about imposing unnecessary barriers to adult learners without evidence that the benefits justify it. And I’m not immune to making dire predictions—if you comb the archives of this blog, you’ll surely find some. But I’m also not dismissing what teachers and others who have been working diligently over the last year to make this adjustment are saying—some are quite effusive in their praise of the new test and feel that the switch to computer-based is the way to go.

The point is, we have a long way to go before we know much about the impact of all these changes. I hope reporters who have jumped on this story looking for disaster this month will return in a year or two to look at what has actually unfolded.

GED Testing Centers: “Almost a Prison-Like Atmosphere”

/ The Old Crank / 2 Comments

From an article in StateImpact Ohio published last week:

According to information from the state’s GED office, the center used to be one of more than 60 testing centers that offered the paper test.  But now, tests will only be offered at certified computer based testing centers. [Seeds of Literacy’s Education Consultant Dan] McLaughlin said that these types of environments could be a little jarring for already nervous test takers. It’s vastly different from the old standard of a paper and pencil test.

“It’s almost like a prison-like atmosphere in there,” he said. “You’re in a little tiny booth, and there’s a camera trained on you the whole time. So it’s a really different feeling than taking the test someplace that you’re comfortable and someplace that you know.” (my emphasis)

Putting aside all of the other concerns people have raised about the changes to the GED, is anyone worried that these tests are going to turn a lot of adult learners off on technology? Or, at the very least, is the (understandable) emphasis on getting people ready for the computer-based GED sucking up time and resources that might otherwise be used to help adult learners access and use digital technology in more creative and interesting ways?

Let’s Have More Readers AND More Coders

/ The Old Crank

Readers of this blog know that I’m very sympathetic to the view that policymakers, from the President on down, do not pay nearly enough attention to U.S. adult literacy rates. So I really appreciate the sentiment behind arguments like this one—especially the idea that we’d get a bigger payoff if we focused our efforts (and dollars) on those in poverty and/or those who are struggling the most.

But I don’t understand why encouraging kids to take up computer programming can’t be part of this efforts. I feel pretty confident that Computer Science Education Week is not the reason we have low adult literacy rates in this country. It’s true that literacy skills are important foundational skills for other disciplines, including computer programming. But that doesn’t mean that they have to literally come first, before anything else. For some computer-loving reluctant readers, literacy instruction in the context of learning about computer science and programming is probably going to be a really good way to reach them. I’m as pro-literacy as you can get, but I don’t want to be in a position of debating whether kids should be learning coding or reading. The question is whether we are providing all children with opportunities to learn about whatever it is that grabs them—and yes, preparing them with the foundational skills to take advantage of those opportunities, but also, I think, continuing to embed sound literacy instruction into every discipline as they move along.

It’s also worth noting that the latest estimates we have about adult skills (Iglesias is using the old NAAL data in his post) show that adult math skills are an even bigger problem than adult literacy, and so encouraging interest in computer science or other math-related subjects might be prudent for this reason as well.