the ged program - the office of adult...

GEDtestingservice.com • GED.com

The GED® Program Helping adults in Pennsylvania succeed for more than 70 years Brian Smith, State Relationship Manager

May 2015

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Agenda

•  The National and Pennsylvania Landscape

•  The 2014 GED® Program

•  Pass rates and volume

•  Additional updates

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But before we discuss numbers…

•  Thank you for all of your hard work in 2014!

•  GED Testing Service is grateful for all that you are doing to help adult learners.

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Why the GED® Program is Different

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Why the GED Test Changed: It’s about the Dream and Opportunity

More than 65% of GED® test takers want more than a high school diploma…

They want to be: Firefighters, Nurses, Teachers, EMTs, Certified Nurse Assistants, Dental Hygienist, Computer Programmers, Police Officers, Welders, HVAC Techs, Managers,

Business Owners, and more.

Jobs that require further education and training

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But….

Less than 12% of GED® grads earned a credential or certificate after passing

The old way of doing things was keeping too many adults from realizing their dreams

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Jobs Evolved Quickly but the GED® Test and Adult Education Didn’t

•  We heard from employers, colleges and the military that the GED® test had to change

•  Value of the GED® credential and number of people taking the test were eroding

•  GED® grads were competing for too few low-skill jobs while middle-skill jobs remain vacant 7


Middle-skill jobs

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The 2014 GED® Test •  The only HSE test created from the ground-up, specifically for

adult learners, measuring both HSE and CCR

•  Very strongly aligned with PA state standards

•  Measures essential higher-order thinking and reasoning skills needed for success in jobs and career and college training programs

•  Ensures that passers demonstrate the knowledge and skills on par with graduating high school seniors

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Much More Than a Test

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Prepare Preparation programs

Perform New assessment

system

Progress Support for post-test transitions

•  MyGED® portal •  Publisher alignment •  GED Ready® with Enhanced Score Report •  GED Marketplace™ •  GED Analytics™ •  Educator/Professional Development Resources

•  2014 GED® test • Aligned with CCRS for Adult

Education • Score report aligned with

publisher products •  Same-day scoring

• MyGED® portal • GED Analytics™ •  Educator/ Professional Development Resources

•  Enhanced Score Report •  GED Analytics™ •  Credentialing with Smart Transcript •  MyGED® portal •  Badging •  ACE CREDIT®

Transcript •  Career Pathways


GED® Testing Program Results A National Look at the first year

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The Big Picture

January 1, 2014 – December 31, 2014

•  223,000 Test Takers

•  114,000 Passers

•  National Pass Rate: ~60% (CBT)

•  Pass rate in 2015: 70%

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National Monthly Volume

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2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

Completers

Passers


National Pass Rate

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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

Pass rate

Pass rate


Pennsylvania GED® Testing Program Results

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PA GED® Testing Statistics Computer Based Testing Only from Jan. 1, 2014 – May 9, 2015

•  34,969 GED® Test modules delivered

•  34,368 GED Ready® tests delivered

•  9,670 Test-takers

•  5,177 Completers

•  3,293 Graduates

•  64% CBT passing rate

•  72% pass rate in 2015

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PA Monthly Progress

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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

PA Pass Rate

PA Pass Rate


PA Monthly Volume

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50

100

150

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400

450

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

Completers

Passers


2014 GED® Test Results

•  .

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Volume and Pass Rates An analysis of 2014 and the beginning of 2015

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2014

•  Volume was steeply down across the U.S. – States offering the test completely for free

– States not using the GED® program

– States using GED® plus one or more tests

– States using only paper tests

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What a difference a year makes!

2014 Test-Takers January-April


Year-Over-Year Growth

47,607

108,597 128%

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Year-Over-Year Growth

1,743

4,077 133%

National volume

PA volume


Reports from Test Providers

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Test taker volume year-over-year decrease, based on 2012 data: •  TASC: 99,196 – 56% Decline in 2014 •  HISET: 84,869 – 41% Decline in 2014 •  GED®: 488,205 – 49% Decline in 2014 * Based on numbers provided/reported in the Wall Street Journal

From NCSDAE report


2014 analysis

•  Why are the number of test takers down?

•  Why are fewer test takers passing?

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Unemployment rates by education level

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High school dropouts have

lowest unemployment

rate since 2008


Benefit of obtaining a GED credential

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Graduates see high value in obtaining GED® credential.

11/21/14 Survey with 2014 GED graduates


Utah adult education EFL when passing the GED tests

76% of 2014 GED students passed the GED® test in the AHSC category compared to 42% from the old test

2nd 6th 4th 9th 11th 12th

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

ABE 1 ABE 2 ABE 3 ABE 4 AHSC 1 AHSC 2

Old test

New test


Graduate success indicator: Jobs •  62% of graduates

looking for a new job

•  66% have found one

28 11/21/14 Survey with 2014 GED graduates


Graduate success indicator: College •  67% of graduates

applied to college •  60% of graduates are

currently accepted to a college –  90% of those who

applied have enrolled or will be enrolled next semester

29 11/21/14 Survey with 2014 GED graduates


GED Test Revisited Some tips to share with your students

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Constructed Response RLA, Social Studies, and Science

•  What we’re seeing:

–  Many students are still struggling with the writing sections

–  Students are summarizing, not analyzing and evaluating

–  Students are not connecting and explaining how the evidence supports the claim

–  Students are using too many quotes and not paraphrasing

–  Students are not writing enough “original” material to receive any points on Trait 3 (grammar and sentence structure)

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The question everyone asks . . .

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What are “Enduring Issues”? The prompts for the GED® Social Studies Extended Response will always fall under the category of Civics and Government. Knowing the major themes will provide you with a frame of reference for prompts that may arise.

The themes of Civics and Government are:

• An individual’s rights versus the good of the community

• Separation of powers

• Checks and Balances

• States’ rights versus federal power.

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Tips for Math

•  Read and use the Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs) as a roadmap for what skills your students need to learn

•  Work on integrating problem solving into lesson plans

•  Students need to work on reasoning and understand how to manipulate formulas (e.g. Students can compute the area/circumference of a circle, but if you give them the circumference and pi, they can’t compute the diameter)

•  Questions cycle through difficulty levels so a student should not get distraught if they run into a problem they are not able to solve

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Additional GED Program Updates

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Excitement from employers

•  Launching major employer program

•  They believe the new GED® program will help them retain employees, prepare more employees for promotion/advancement, and fill open jobs with qualified applicants

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Additional updates

•  Erasable board policy: Test-takers will soon get a packet of 3 boards when testing

•  3 GED Ready Math tests now

•  American Council on Education CREDIT recommendation on GED with Honors

•  Publishers being reviewed 37


Professional Development Update

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Professional Development Resources and Tools for Instructors

•  Teacher’s guide •  Assessment guide for

educators

•  The GED® Test: A content comparison

•  GED® training courses on Math and RLA

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•  Item samplers •  Archived webinars

•  Free practice test

•  Teacher scoring tools

•  Most frequently missed items

•  Performance Level Descriptors


Support tools for test-takers

•  2014 Computer-based test tutorial

•  Calculator tutorial

•  Free practice test

•  GED Ready®

•  GED Marketplace™

•  Smart transcript

•  MyGED® portal

•  Detailed score report

•  Adult education center locator

•  Test tips

•  College and Career tools

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2015 Professional Development Objectives

1.  Focus on key the skills and confidence needed to teach GED® test content

2.  Design and deliver a Professional Development curriculum

3.  Provide robust, multi-faceted delivery options (e.g. in-person, web, interactive CD, and/or live Webinar)

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A Pathway for Evolving Delivery

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Foundational Coursework:

Foundational Coursework + Deeper Dive Components:

Foundational Coursework + Deep Dive Components + Certification Series

Phase 1: 2014

Phase 2: 2015

Phase 3: 2016 & Beyond

Face-to-Face Web content Paper/CD

Face-to-Face Webinars Web content CD

Face-to-Face Webinars Web content Multi-media


Comprehensive Content Offerings

•  Phase I Webinars 1. March 24

2. April 28

3. May 26

4. June 23

•  Phase II Webinars 5. September 22

6. October 27

7. November 17

8. December 8

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Webinar 1: Mathematical Reasoning

•  1800 Adult Educators invited to attend –  Previously participated in foundational courses

•  400 participated in the March webinar

•  600 participated in the April webinar

•  Webinars were recorded and placed on website with documents:

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http://www.gedtestingservice.com/educators/exploring-the-2014-ged-test-webinar-archive


Contact Information Brian Smith [email protected] 202-471-2153

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