adult education

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.

Politico Describes the Revamped GED as a Potential “Cash Cow” for Testing Companies

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

More eye-popping language about new GED, this time from Politico (“Testing companies see cash cow in revamped GED“):

High school dropouts seeking a diploma will soon face a brand new exam system that will demand more skills from them—and yield more profits for testing companies.

The traditional GED exam, administered for more than 70 years by the nonprofit American Council on Education, will be replaced on Thursday by a buffet of options from three testing companies, two of them global for-profit firms. The new exams are all meant to better prepare students for the modern workforce. But they differ dramatically in price, length and—at least initially—in degree of difficulty.

It was amusing to think of anything related to adult education being considered a “cash cow,” so I was glad to see that the article noted the substantial reduction in federal funding for adult education since the mid-2000s. The piece also provides some interesting details about the process (and the players) which led to the GED change:

The American Council on Education has traditionally updated the exam every decade or so to keep pace with the curriculum of modern high schools. When that process began again a few years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided a grant for the council to hire the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting firm.

Bridgespan advocated a completely new approach: The exam should be given online instead of on pencil and paper; it should demand more algebra and more analytical thinking; it should include more open-response questions and fewer multiple choice. And it should be aligned with the Common Core academic standards now being rolled out in K-12 classrooms nationwide.

The council didn’t have the money for such a dramatic rewrite, so it decided to team up with testing giant Pearson to create a joint venture known as the GED Testing Service, according to CT Turner, a spokesman for the venture.

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?

Here’s How the Budget Deal Will Impact Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

(Updated below)

I have no idea.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 set overall discretionary federal spending for FY 2014 and 2015, ($1.012 trillion and $1.014 trillion, respectively), but we won’t know how this will specifically impact federal adult education spending—most importantly, the primary source of federal adult education spending, Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA)—until the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 appropriations process plays itself out over the next several weeks.

But I do know  it’s going to work (based on reports from various sources): The agreement provides $63 billion towards sequester replacement: $45 billion for FY 2014 and $18 billion for FY 2015. In other words, the sequester level-spending limits that were going to be in effect for the next two years have been bumped up by $63 billion in FY 2014 and $18 billion in FY 2015.

Once the agreement is signed into law by the President, Senate and House appropriators have to figure out—pretty quickly—how they want to actually spend this money in FY 2014, (which actually began back in October). So they are getting ready to embark on something of a normal—if very abbreviated—appropriations process over the next several weeks (they have to finish by January 15th).

What’s interesting (if you can describe any of this as actually interesting) is that the new $1.012 trillion top line for FY 2014 presents a starkly different set of challenges for Senate and House appropriators as they put together their bills:

  • House appropriators are facing the task of adding money to the appropriations bills they wrote earlier that assumed a top line of just $967 billion. (Note that the House never produced a Labor-HHS-ED bill, so we never learned what they were planning to cut in terms of any education programs.)
  • The Senate, on the other hand, will have to trim spending back from the $1.058 trillion top line that Senate Democrats had used in their original FY 2014 budget. Unlike the House, the Senate did pass all 12 of their appropriations bills, including a Labor-HHS-ED bill at $164.33 billion, which proposed adult education funding of $594 million for FY 2014 (about $30 million over FY 2013 sequestered levels). That doesn’t mean Senate appropriators will propose an increase again this time around, but it’s possibly a clue into what they are inclined to do.

It’s possible that appropriators will simply propose a proportional increase for adult education relative to the overall increase in spending in the budget agreement—more or less putting adult education back to where it was before the 2013 sequester cut. But they could go for more—or less. So stay tuned. But also, you might want to consider contacting members of Congress and letting them know how important this funding is—particularly if they are on one of the House or Senate Labor-HHS-ED appropriations subcommittees.

Also—and I feel like I need to insert this reminder every time I write about the budget—remember that not all federal adult education spending comes out of Title II of WIA. Community Development Block Grants, AmeriCorps funding, funding for immigration programs, and some other pots of education money are also source of funding for some programs. So, if you care about adult education spending, remember that there will be several places in those appropriations bills you need to look at. I’m only paid to track WIA these days, so I don’t know how closely I’ll be following the allocations for these other programs.

Side Note: The budget deal did not include an extension of the longer term unemployment insurance benefits, which expire December 28th. Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are saying they plan to take up a one-year extension of the emergency unemployment program when Congress returns in January and something of a strategy to make it happen. This is worth keeping an eye on because two years ago during debate over extending UI, Republicans tried to insert several conditions to the extension, including a requirement that benefits be restricted to those who had passed the GED (or equivalent) or, if they had not, were enrolled in a course of study towards such a credential. I really don’t expect this to happen this time… but still, worth watching.

UPDATE: 12/20/13: Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones quoting Joel Friedman of CBPP on the challenges facing appropriators over the next several weeks:

“It will be difficult,” says Joel Friedman, vice president for federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “They’ve added back some, but not the full amount of the sequester cuts. There will continue to be unmet needs. Not everybody is going to get the level of funding that they would like out of this.”