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May 03, 2009
GED DISASTER MENTIONED IN USA TODAY
By Profesor Martin Danenberg “El Quijote del GED”
PAY PAL NOTICE
Something new in 2010. You can now order the GED program. It is so simple! Click on the word clic above my article (in the white section on the right). By clicking you can go to my website and find "Services" to order the GED program in English or Spanish. See the Pay Pal there. Thank you for taking this important, powerful step in your life. I really hope that a job or higher education awaits you, even induction into the military. Your future is important!
A February 22, 2009 article by Tom Coyne of the associated press tells us we are facing a national disaster as people are trying to earn their GED and there are huge waiting lists. This comes years after I told Americans that we are facing a national crisis. The problem is that the individuals feel the problem and so do their families, but the rest of the nation is uncommitted to help. US Today has to do much more to help America and so do those directors of programs mentioned in the article. Iraq, Katrina, the economic bailout, swine flu, and now the GED disaster (finally) have been making the news. Unfortunately this is just an average article. For example, the 13,000 additional people who took the test are 13,000 out of 5.5 million. The waiting lists are just waiting lists. In New York City there are 1.6 million adults who do not have a diploma. Our governors and even President Barack Obama must act now to tell people to take the OPT or Official Practice Test. The solution is quite simple and we should not put tens of millions of dollars into GED classes. This article needs a follow up article and the president of ProLiteracy must look at the report of the Department of Youth and Community Development or contact me. In fact, President Obama should be contacting me. An assistant to a legislator told me last week that he told someone a thousand miles away to ask the GED program to give him or her the Official Practice Test. Guess what happened. The school told the person that he or she is qualified to take the GED. I can tell you that a dozen websites are not getting the right information about GED because of his article. The facts are the facts, but the solution is take the practice test and I have that program and then find out if you can pass the GED.
Here are some paragraphs that I took from that article.
Donna Sharp made a good living even without a high school diploma, earning about $19 an hour putting stripes on recreational vehicles in a northern Indiana county known as the RV capital of the world.
In that bleak market, Sharp, 44, found that her lack of a diploma limited her prospects. So she scrapped her job search to sign up for classes to earn General Education Development credentials, joining a nationwide crush that is creating lengthy backlogs for people desperate to acquire tools to help them find work.
"We've never had waiting lists like this, ever," said Deborah Weaver, director of community education for Elkhart Community Schools.
David C. Harvey, president of ProLiteracy, a nonprofit literacy organization with 1,200 affiliates, said agencies that help people study for GEDs and other adult education classes are being deluged at a time when many are facing cuts in state funding and dwindling donations.
In New York City, the Fifth Avenue Committee, which runs a GED class for 22 students, usually has a waiting list of about 50 people. It now has 178 waiting to get into class.
Chris Curran, the committee's director of adult education and literacy, said normally she would refer people to GED classes at other agencies, but those sites also are full.
In California, where the 9.3% unemployment rate is a 15-year high, the number of people taking the GED has increased from 46,184 in 2005 to 59,416 in 2008. Nancy Goodrich, an education programs consultant with the California Education Department, said the state saw a 14% increase in people taking the test last year alone.
She decided to get her GED so she could participate in a state program that allows displaced workers to receive up to $6,000 to put toward an associate degree or industry-recognized certificate in a program connected to high-need occupations.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
www.ahorre.com
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg May 3, 2009 02:30 PM