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January 04, 2010
GED TEST REGISTRATION ONLINE IN NEW YORK CITY AND MORE
By Profesor Martin Danenberg "El Quijote del GED"
Here are some important things about Manuel Avendano's article in El Diario de la Prensa on July 23, 2009. I would be happy to assist the new program. I am a GED consultant and vendor of the Department of Education. If I fix something, it will stay fixed. The GEDHOTINE has done all of the things in the article for 9 years (except for online registration) and finally the City Council of New York is catching up. Now all of you can catch up everywhere. Each of his points is followed by my own comments.
According to statistics, approximately 1.6 million New Yorkers above 16 years of age are not in school and do not have a high school degree. Less than 1 percent (13,000) of them passed the GED in 2006 – 43 percent of all New Yorkers. Governor Paterson's office agreed not to only look at the passing rate in New York, because we want to double the number of GED diplomas and not just add a few hundred or even a thousand to show some minor improvement.
New York City had a 47.5 passing rate on the GED, which is well below the national average (well below the state average). This information comes from a recent report of the Community Service Society. New York State's passing rate was 62.5 percent.
Quinn (Kathleen Quinn, Speaker of the City Council) announced that under her initiative, and that of Council Member María del Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx), they had raised funds to create "GED Compass," a gateway for people who want to earn a high school diploma.
The GED is not a high school diploma and neither is the completion certificate (winking at you Bobby Hunter). The GED is often called the high school equivalency, but it is really the diploma of General Educational Development.
GED Compass seeks to fix this problem and fine tune the system in various ways, mainly by informing people where they should go for test prep classes, how to fill out an application, take a practice exam, pass it and go on to a university afterwards.
This is well needed help because people even call me in Suffolk County to get help in the City of New York. Filling out an application is a helpful endeavor. Sure I have done it for students. Almost anyone who has filled out an application or two related to something else can easily do it. People can take the Practice exam with me. I am a vendor of the Department of Education of the City of New York. They can take the practice test at home and do not need to travel anywhere to do it. Manuel means that people have to take the real GED, pass it, and go on to the university afterwards. Dr. Denise Gordon has a new practice test program in Harlem.
But the most important change resulting from GED Compass is that applicants will be able to register to take the official exam online, resulting in a shorter waiting time and a more convenient location. Currently there are more than 30 public centers where people can take the GED exam.
"It will function like a reservation system for hotels or airlines, where the interested applicant will be able to view all the available locations, choose the most convenient one and set a date to take the exam," said Elyse Barbell of the Literacy Assistance Center, who will be responsible for producing and maintaining GED Compass.
Remember that Elyse Barbell said people will be able to register for the test online and not take the test online. Online testing, if it exists, is fraud. Registering online should be very helpful. I hope that all 30 sites will have updated information on which dates are available at that time. In the past, the dates listed were fixed schedules prepared the year before or several months before.
Barbell said that the program, which is estimated to cost $175,000, will be put into effect in September 2010, with some aspects being implemented before that.
For more information on the GED please visit http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ged/.
I wish I knew which aspects were being implemented before.
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 January 4, 2010 11:12 AM