Testimony of Marc Korashan before NYC Council Youth Services and Education Committees
Jan 21, 2009 5:52 PM
Thank you, Chairman Fidler, Chairman Jackson and members of the Youth Services Committee and Education Committee.
My name is Marc Korashan. I am a special representative for the United Federation of Teachers. On behalf of UFT President Randi Weingarten, I want to thank you for allowing me to offer the union’s perspectives on how to best address the New York City GED testing system.
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There are roughly one and a half million New Yorkers without a high school diploma in need of adult-education services. For these adults, the GED is seen as an opportunity to earn a living wage and actively take the next step towards college.
The report by Jacqueline Cook, Our Chance for Change: A Four Year Reform Initiative for GED Testing in New York City, is a thoughtful examination of the problems with the current system and the potential for significant improvements.
However, we are testifying today to voice our concerns regarding her recommendation to require all students to take and pass the Official Practice Test (OPT) before taking the examination.
The experience of our teachers suggests that many students, even some with OPT scores predicting success, need more than one try to pass the test. By limiting the number of students taking the test, and inflating pass rates by excluding people from the test, will produce negative outcomes. Ultimately, the passing rate on the test is less important than the number of diplomas that are actually awarded.
The Cook Report itself notes that 7,606 people in NYC passed the 2007 GED without a Prep-code, meaning they did not come through a GED preparation program (Page 38). Those 7,606 people, 58 percent of all graduates who passed that year, would not have their GED today if they were required to take and pass an OPT.
Steve Meyerson, a veteran Adult Education Teacher, reports that 135 of his students passed the GED between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008. Only 93 of them had a high enough OPT score to be referred to the test with the program code. The 42 of those who graduated in this cohort would not have passed the GED if an OPT requirement were in place because they would have been prevented from taking the test.
It is just as important to note that 49 of the 135 who passed had to take the test two or more times creating a pass rate of 50 percent or less. We should celebrate the success of these persistent students, not attempt find fault because they lowered the overall pass rate.
The requirement to pass an OPT before sitting for the test will prevent many students from benefiting from cumulative scoring which allows students to pass the GED by combining the best scores from two or more actual tests. The 49 students mentioned earlier all used cumulative scoring and now have their GEDs.
One student, Esther Yebara, got her GED at age 86. She took the GED five times which created a pass rate of 20 percent. Her OPT scores were never close to 2250, the score that predicts passing the GED. She passed because she was determined. She started as an English as a Second Language student and moved to the GED class after becoming fluent in English. She is now attending Manhattan Community College.
There are many examples of dedicated students like Esther throughout the state who lower the pass rate while raising themselves. Ms. Cook herself quotes one of them who, “after passing the exam on the third try said, ‘I couldn’t have made it without my teachers help. He made me study.’” She goes on to add that “Most students spoke positively about the support and encouragement offered by their teachers.” (Pg 20)
We need to recognize that OPT is not reliable enough to predict the actual result. There are currently seven forms of the OPT. Each OPT is different in content. This means that a student more familiar with the content of one OPT will obtain a higher predictive score than if he took a form with different content.
Instead of using the OPT to create a barrier between students and the test we should work to create a system that directs students who fail the test into GED preparation programs. These students would have an actual GED result which is the best diagnostic tool a student and a teacher can have. The actual result determines what area, or areas, the student needs to prepare before retesting on the actual GED.
A half-length OPT falls short of offering students the genuine testing experience. Some students outperform or under perform the OPT on the actual test. Some students pass and fail different parts on the OPT compared to the actual test. An actual GED test score provides a detailed diagnosis of where the student falls.
Students holding down jobs, those waiting to start college or a vocational training programs should not be kept waiting because of an OPT score. The same can be said for the many people who can pass the GED test without going to school and without taking an OPT.
We favor proper use of the OPT for learning, diagnosis, remediation, and guidance. However, we are opposed to turning the OPT into a high-stakes barrier which denies opportunities to thousands of students. We want to increase the number of GEDs for hard-working students, not artificially inflate the passing rate.
