My GED Hotline GED Practice Test

La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark, New Jersey has opened a GED testing center where ten people can be tested each month. This is just a tiny step forward for the Hispanic community that needs a larger testing center or ten such testing centers to open immediately.

It only takes passing 5 parts of the GED to earn a diploma in New York State. If candidates pass the 5 parts of the GED in New Jersey and fail the remaining part (English), they should take up residence in New York State and submit a form with payment to use the out of state scores to receive a diploma. The passing score needed in New York is a minimum of 410 on each part with a total score of 2,250. Since people often move back and forth, people from New Jersey could use these scores until 2012 when the new GED test will invalidate all scores.

Steven Camarota’s comments may seem right to many, but his idea would invalidate the high school diploma or GED obtained in another country anywhere in the world that people move to. A high school diploma obtained in Spanish in Mexico, Central America, or South America has always been valid for employment in the United States. I wonder if Mr. Camarota would change his thoughts after doing more investigation. Puerto Rico requires passing the English exam and I have fought Puerto Rico for years and failed to win that battle. The result of keeping the sixth test in Puerto Rico, along with other problems, has created a GED disaster for Puerto Rico from which it has not recovered. This same disaster would await both legal residents and citizens in New Jersey who took the GED in English, instead of in Spanish and French. As long as people pay the cost of the GED themselves, it really should not matter to anyone what language they take the test in. Taxpayers cannot complain that taxpayer money is being used to support undocumented immigrants. In fact, increased education by undocumented immigrants in should please anti-immigrant organizations because those immigrants have a greater chance of succeeding when they return home. Getting the Spanish GED here will permit people to return home, study in the university and possibly become part of the middle class in their home country, if and when they choose to return.

Undocumented immigrants may take the GED in La Casa de Don Pedro and, of course, all residents and citizens may do so also. I have spoken to an immigration lawyer who told me that people can win the lottery and immigrate to the United States and it seems that they do not have to speak English at all. They do need a high school diploma. So I wonder who these experts are that spoke to the reporter and told her taking the GED in Spanish is sending the wrong message to people.

Below is a comment taken from the internet about this new Spanish GED testing center. The important thing to remember is that the state is not paying any money for the testing.

So now we are targeting entitlement programs in Spanish- my tax dollars at work for the Democratic party. Newark takes one step closer to being a full blown Sanctuary City.
We have a budget crisis in our state, yet there is money to launch this program? Voters, take note!

Yonkers parents are sending their children to public schools in the Bronx and it is not even clear if they are paying the required $5,000 to do so, the New York Post reported. The school mentioned has a passing rate of 86 percent on state reading and math tests. As you can see something is right and something is wrong. The reporter did not even bring up the question of how we compare this kind of school to a charter school. The neighborhood school system that used to be has broken down and there seems to be no reason to even compare it to the school system that existed before mayor control and charter school.

I had a wonderful meeting with two women and information will be taken to Honduras about the Spanish GED for that country. Let us hope that the Spanish GED can be brought to Honduras and other countries. I call upon President Barack Obama to use education as a tool in building better relationships with all of Latin America. I am the official educator of the government of El Salvador until the end of May and I will soon be free to help all nations obtain the GED.

I spoke with a parent coordinator who said it would be a “huge” thing for the countries of Latin America to bring the Spanish GED to all of the countries. Yes, it would be a “huge” thing to do that and to double the number of GED diplomas to his community and tens of thousands of communities around the United States and Puerto Rico.

It is appropriate for the First Lady to talk about education at a performance of the American Ballet Theater because art is important. “My husband and I believe strongly that art education is essential for building innovative thinkers who be our nation’s leaders of tomorrow,” I read in the New York Post. If I loved ballet (and I do not), I would have been there with her, even though I am fighting to help poor people earn their GED around the world. I would love to be with ex-President Bill Clinton when he becomes UN special envoy to Haiti so I can tell him that we can bring the French GED to Haiti. I really hope Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton get involved with the GED for hundreds of millions of people in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean and we know that Barack Obama wants to influence foreign countries by diplomacy and economic tools, the GED being one of those great economic tools. We are talking about helping our youth keep out of jail, but there is no real action to help our at risk youth earn a GED and that needs to be addressed now by the new administration. Ballet or baseball will not really help in this war in the streets. Our youth need a diploma.

A principal of a New York City school allegedly assaulted a teacher’s union representative). It has been alleged that parents have taken their children out of that school because of the conduct of the principal. A teacher sprayed Lysol that entered a student’s eye. It is not exactly clear why she did sprayed the Lysol, but it may have been because of a fight or loitering outside her classroom. She has her story and an eyewitness has a different story. The Department of Education is responsible for the conduct of administrators and teachers. Both the principal and the teacher have been arrested. Where did the Department of Education go wrong in training these people?

Operation SNUG was inaugurated during a Town Meeting at Touro Law Center. Operation Snug is the Anti-gun, Anti-violence task force of Suffolk County funded for the first time with $4 million of state money. Many people were talking about GED and I told the audience that we just have to administer the Official GED Practice Test to help people during this national crisis (or even if there is no national crisis).

It was reported that the middle schools of New York City made “amazing” progress according to Mayor Bloomberg. We would really have to see two things. First what happened to the students who left the school over a three year period to see their progress and were the students in those grades really expected to do well based on their elementary school grades (and did their grades go up or did they remain constant or even go down). What is the sum of the growth of each student and not just who passed or who failed?

I held my GED-Dropout Prevention Conference in the 50 Cent Community Garden thanks to the community residents there and Larry Love. Chancellor Klein’s office sent a representative from the Office For Family Engagement and Advocacy (thanks to Queen Makkada).

In the “Briefs” column of the New York State Teacher, there were jokes about rebranding the “No Child Left Behind Act” and I am not against jokes at all. Among the entries posted on a website, it says, are Act to Help Children Read Gooder, No Child Left Untested, No Child’s Behind Left, No School Board Left Standing, the Teach to the Test Act and Could We Start Again Please Act. It is really amazing that the New York Times has ignored my work. So I suggest calling NCLB the Do the Right Thing: No Person Left Behind. The joke is on the New York Times because it really does not have the solutions.

Martin N. Danenberg
7 Blazer Drive
Islandia, New York 11749
631-348-1341
gedhotline@aol.com
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.aspira.org