Building a Better GED

The Texas Certificate of High School Equivalency is supposed to be a route back into education for people who never graduated high school. Now policymakers are considering changing the test after previous reforms seemingly blocked that route back to the classroom.

The latest numbers are startling. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of people statewide taking the General Education Development (GED) test dropped by 0.25% every year; between 2012 and 2014, it slumped by 45%, from 50,476 to 28,020. The Center for Public Policy Priorities attributes the drop to the introduction of electronic tests, replacing the old pen-and-paper version for most test-takers. Those new tests seem to have been a bad deal for Texas: Not only did they cost 70% more, but the proportion of students passing dropped from 61% to 44%. Remove those still taking the paper test, and the pass rate drops to 30%. The CPPP argues that, apart from the test being much harder now, the new format discriminates against people with little or no computer experience. CPPP Policy Analyst Chandra Villanueva called the drop "alarming" and said the state needs to provide better options.

The State Board of Education is already considering changes. Back in April, board members took presentations from three applicants for the next contract: current vendor Pearson; Educational Testing Service, which offers the HiSET (High School Equivalency Test); and McGraw-Hill, which offers the TASC (Test Assessing Secondary Completion). As written, the state's request for proposal (RFP) limited the board to selecting a single winner. Instead, at their July 17 meeting the board instructed staff to rewrite the RFP so they could contract multiple vendors, giving test-takers and providers options. The revised timeline should be back for board approval in September, with new vendor presentations penciled in for November or December, and a finalist – or finalists – selected potentially as early as January 2016.

The good news for Pearson is that, while the RFP is being re-drafted, the SBOE extended their memorandum of understanding with the firm for an extra six months, through Dec. 31. With the current timeline, they are likely to maintain their present contract through the end of the next school year. However, the board's actions could mean another big client gone, since the firm has already lost multimillion K-12 testing contracts in Texas and New York. Moreover, it faces an unpleasant economic reality: At $135 per test, Pearson's electronic GED is the most expensive of the offerings, compared to $50 for HiSET and $67 for TASC.