Abogados de Inmigracion

IN NEW YORK STATE HE WAS REQUIRED TO BE IN A GED PROGRAM BECAUSE HE WAS UNDER 19 YEARS OF AGE AND HAD NOT BEEN DISCHARGED FROM PATCHOGUE-MEDFORD FOR A YEAR. IF HE HAD TAKEN THE GED IMMEDIATELY HE WOULD HAVE PASSED AND GONE JOB HUNTING WITH HIS GED. Two days after the roundtable I met a 19 GED graduate from Patchogue-Medford. He told me his lowest passing score was 490 and his score in social studies was 580. He felt the social studies was hard, but he had a very high mark. What disturbed me was that by his own failure to attend classes often and the GED program taking too long to send him to take the test, he wasted months when could easily have passed the GED after four hours taking the Official Practice Test. He has a bunch of friends who still have not taken the GED. The same practice test could be given to them and those who pass could go forward and take the real test. LET US STOP WASTING PEOPLE’S TIME AND MOBILIZE COMMUNITIES TOWARD THE GED.

Immediately the people from Brentwood told me that the program there is one of the largest in the state and I told them that I am familiar with the program and the testing center. I commenced the roundtable by informing them and people arriving a few minutes late that New York State is below the national average on the GED. Since graduation rates are declining and New York State Regents members are alarmed, the low numbers in both educational areas are making New Yorkers less and less competitive. I concluded by telling the people there that we must double the number of GED’s earned by people in the poorest school districts like Hempstead, Wyandanch, Brentwood, Central Islip, Riverhead and Uniondale among others.

Lenny Fillyaw did a presentation about Benjamin Franklin and the role of the library in providing opportunities that lead to educational equality. People without the financial sources of the wealthy and middle class may take out books, learn about technology today, and take the GED Official Practice Test in the Central Islip Public Library in English, Spanish, and French. Lenny Fillyaw also explained that he had made great progress in the community in realizing his dream to open a boxing gym with a GED component, in which people must have a high school diploma or study for the GED. I pointed out that recreational programs in communities have never had GED as a component. This has been needed for generations in most communities. Every community can obtain the program for people on probation and for people who are not on probation. The Official GED Practice Test is used all over the United States in GED programs and my plan is cost effective. In GED classes people get paid if students show up or not, but this plan is based on delivering instruction to everyone.

I told the people attending that the GED is the cement that will hold together the educational plans of people all over New York and the nation. We have to educate the parents so that their children can aspire to more and the added income from the GED will make families financially stronger. If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had told African Americans and the disenfranchised poor to take the GED in the 1960’s, there would have been a rush to the GED (I am not suggesting that those young people should have dropped out of school. I am referring to the adults that were either denied opportunities or due to other circumstances dropped out of school).

The GED in any language is what we need. The knowledge people have in their own language is valid. If there were Italian language GED and Portuguese GED and GED in a hundred languages only the most narrow minded people would protest that they should be tested only be in English. Why should a person who has just arrived here not take an equivalency in his own language and be forced to begin his education all over again from scratch, as we say, to satisfy people who do not really care if those people progress or not in our society? Some people love the English language and do justice to it by advocating for it but others are using the language as a smoke screen for holding others down.

The networking required will help mobilize people to improve their lives and their families, and communities. Libraries, probation departments, One-Stop employment centers, community colleges, school boards, non-for-profit institutions, consulates, and elected officials can work closely together to insure that success. It can be done. Just do it!

COMING SOON A GED ROUNDTABLE FOR ALL THE LIBRARIES IN SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK.

MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
631-348-1341
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com/noticias