Changing GED Could Mean Greater Barriers for Area Women

Last week Jessica Zetzman, Washington Area Women's Foundation, wrote about the challenges and barriers that the changes to the GED could mean for adults looking to pass the test. Jessica also highlights our work on this issue including our  most recent forum "What does a changing GED mean for DC adults ?" held on July 17th. Check out Jessica's piece below as we continue the discussion of the GED and DC adults. To view pictures and videos from the forum check out our Facebook and Youtube pages here. And a special thank you to Jessica and the Washington Area Women's Foundation for their continued support!

I’ve had the amazing opportunity to be a volunteer teacher at Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Grantee Partner, The Academy of Hope, and can speak to the hard work of the learners who step through their doors each day. This innovative organization provides basic education to adult learners. Though most learners have jobs, families and a myriad of other responsibilities that compete for their time, they still make their studies a priority. In spending time with the learners there, I’ve come to see that the value of a GED or high school equivalency diploma goes beyond the increased job opportunities and higher wages associated with obtaining that level of education (though these are extremely important). Their value is also in the confidence gained by the adults who walk across the stage at graduation, in a mother who is more equipped to help her children with their homework, in that member of society who is more prepared for civic engagement and in immeasurably more ways. In January of 2014, however, the GED is undergoing significant changes that will likely make it considerably more difficult to obtain.

While there are several changes coming to the GED, three of the most significant shifts are the transition from paper-based tests to computerized-only exams, the jump from a $50 testing fee to a fee of $120, and an increase in the test’s difficulty. These changes have been widely debated, and Academy of Hope has been tackling the tough questions around this transition through a series of panels and continuing dialog on this issue. Most recently, they hosted local experts for a panel discussion on July 17th, in partnership with the Moriah Fund and PNC Bank, to discuss the implications of the changing GED for DC adults.

The panel raised several great issues, discussing the challenges and barriers that the changes to the GED could mean for adults looking to pass the test, and balancing these with comments on the need for the GED to remain relevant at a time when many jobs demand higher levels of computer literacy and “soft skills” such as listening, critical reasoning, and inductive reasoning. For me, one of the most relevant comments came from Nicole Smith, a research professor and senior economist at the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. She noted that her research has shown that women need an entire layer of education higher than men to obtain the same salary, meaning that when a woman obtains her GED she would still need at least an associate’s degree or certificate just to earn what a man with a GED alone would be able to earn; women with the same educational attainment as men earn about a quarter less than their male counterparts over a lifetime. For the new GED, with the increase in difficulty, greater need for computer literacy and higher financial burden just to take the test, women will face an even more difficult road to higher education and family sustaining wages.

In a city where, in 2008, 14% of girls did not complete high school, the ramifications for this are serious. The GED test is the most widely recognized alternative to a high school diploma and a gateway to higher education opportunities. The changes to the GED will likely increase the time commitment of adults studying for the test, and will mean a tremendous amount of work for organizations that prepare adults in the Washington area for the GED, as they will need to revamp and adapt their programs to the new standards. At the panel discussion, NPR’s Kavitha Cardoza remarked that with the coming changes in the GED, “this is a really scary time for adult educators and adults in DC.”

As the barriers to higher education for women in the region increase, so, too, do the barriers to better jobs and more opportunities for women and their families to find economic security. This is why The Women’s Foundation funds programs like Academy of Hope and appreciates their commitment to continuing the conversation with great events like this panel!

For more information on what the changes to the GED could mean for area adults, click here for a policy brief courtesy of The Working Poor Families Project.

You can follow Academy of Hope as they continue the discussion on twitter at @AoHDC and on Facebook.

By Jessica Zetzman (To view this post on Washington Area Women's Foundation just click here.)

"High Price for Low Literacy"

Last part of WAMU 88.5's series "Yesterday's Dropouts". Listen here to Special Correspondent Kavitha Cardoza's report.

To donate to Academy of Hope and help adult learners like Claudine Edwards, click here.

"At 13 years old, Claudine Edwards had a baby and dropped out of school. When she did, her dreams of becoming a nurse evaporated. Now she's 53 and has come to Academy of Hope, a nonprofit in southeast D.C., to ask about classes.

Edward's motivation for coming back to school is to be able to read baby books to her neighbor's grandchildren. This is the third time she's enrolled in adult education classes. She stopped coming the first time because of an abusive relationship; the second time was after she took the GED test — and failed.

“I went to school everyday,” she says. “It just felt like my heart dropped. To this day, I could cry.”

Edwards is like many adult learners who are very fragile, with little confidence. They are already so discouraged that any setback can be devastating. It's taken Edwards three years to summon up the courage to try again.

"I think about all these years where I could have probably been. A lot of my goals could've been accomplished. But I'm not giving up."

She lost her job as a cleaner during the recession, and for five years she's been unemployed. Edwards relies on food stamps, and her daughter pays her rent.

When Cathy Walsh, a staff member at Academy of Hope, brings up money, Edwards tenses up. When she hears fees costs $10 for three months, Edwards looks relieved. But then a moment later, she inquires about volunteer work.

“Can you give me a copy of this, so I can show it to a loved one ‘cause I’m not working.” she asks Walsh.Walsh explains the school's "service hours" payment system, in which Edwards can volunteer after class to put away chairs and clean the whiteboard. That way she'll only have to pay a third of the fee — $10 for three months of classes. But Edwards can't afford even that. She stares at the papers.

Mismatched Skills

D.C. boasts a higher percentage of advanced degress than any of the 50 states. But there are also 85,000 people like Claudine Edwards who can’t read and write very well, and who are largely invisible.

Most of these dropouts pay a higher price for low literacy. Two out of every three adults without a high school diploma in D.C. don't have jobs.

Emily Durso, with the Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE), says adult education is the first step toward employment. She gives the example of Costco opening in D.C. a few months ago.

The Department of Employment Services had 800 people to apply for 165 jobs. The biggest barrier for people to apply wasn't willingness to work, she says, but to go through a screening process and read and comprehend Costco's literature.

For those who do get hired, it often means low-end jobs — part time or seasonal — with no hope of advancing. In tough times, they're often the first ones laid off.

Limited skills affect the economy

Stephen Fuller, an economist with George Mason University, says the whole region suffers when so many adults have limited skills.

“You train a worker, they go to work, earn money, spend their money, support other jobs, they pay taxes, earn a living,” he says. “So the return on investment, if done right, is extremely high, and it surprises me that we haven’t taken control of this.”

He says most of the unemployed workers looking for jobs just need some training to get back in the workforce. They have skills, but may not have the right skills.

In D.C., the government spends $4 million a year on nonprofits that educate adults. That's half of what it spent back in 2007.

Some adult educators say improving adult literacy rates would not only make for a more prosperous city, but also a healthier one.

Low literacy affects health

Students in a health class at St. Mary's Center in northwest D.C. are learning different body parts. This helps them tell a doctor what hurts during a visit to the clinic.

Alis Marachelian runs the health education program at St. Mary's, whose clinic serves approximately 25,000 patients each year. Marachelian says the barrier between caregivers and patients who can't read, write or speak is a "huge problem, every day."

“We use illustrations for medicines, we would draw the sun and the moon as to when to take the medicine,” says Marachelian. “Which one you take with food, with an icon of a food item. Sometimes we help them put it in a pillbox because they can’t count either.”

Marachelian says for some common conditions such as diabetes, the least compliant patients are the ones with low literacy. It's not that they're resisting medication; they just don't know how to measure the amount of insulin or understand the potentially fatal consequences of a wrong dose. And often, she says, a parent's low literacy affects their children's health.

“For example, giving cough syrup, measuring how much they might be overdosing their children and it’s absolutely unintentional. For asthma, some inhalers have the same color, so confusing the ones that are long acting or short acting is a problem.”

Marachelian says when children's symptoms fail to improve, doctors may increase the dosage or change the medication, thinking it's not working. There are more emergency room visits. Children have to miss school and parents take off from work. With a chronic condition, she says, this could mean the child falls behind academically or the parent gets fired.

Teaching the next generation

Parents who don't read well themselves also have a hard time helping their children in school.

"There is a sense of humiliation that they're somehow going to be embarrassed if they approach the school, because of what they don't have and don't know," says Valarie Ashley, who runs Southeast Ministries, an adult education center in D.C.

Research shows parental involvement improves a child's academic performance, resulting in higher test scores, better attendance and improved graduation rates. And Ashley says she's seen that happen in her own family. She was 10 when her mother went back to school at 37. Overnight, they started to sit around the dining table every evening and do homework together.

“The point came fairly quickly, where she could then supervise and help us with some of our homework,” says Ashley. “She also started to advocate for us in school, and she didn’t do that before.”

But perhaps the biggest cost is one that can't be measured. It's the invisible cost of what might have been. John Bridegland, with Civic Enterprises, a public policy firm in D.C., calls dropping out a "dream buster." Students who drop out usually don't vote and don't volunteer.

“With millions of students dropping out every year, it’s like generations of talent needlessly lost,” she says. “You think about the civic fabric of our communities and what life could have been like. You realize the dropout epidemic is a huge loss to our nation.”

It may have seemed easy to drop out of school, but the path after that is hard -- a lifetime of dreams that lie just out of reach. It means a business not started, a song unwritten, a bedtime story never read.

Even those who go back to school often struggle to earn a diploma and hold a steady job. But for many of yesterday's dropouts, there's something else at stake as well: something less tangible but no less significant: A chance to emerge from the shadows and finally be seen."

Go to WAMU 88.5's 5-part series, "Yesterday's Dropouts", for more reports, videos and resources.