Last year, the General Educational Development (GED) structure was changed, some say to a more difficult collection of tests. Gone was the availability to take the high school equivalency exams with a pencil and paper. Now, only students with computer access were allowed to complete the process.
This change to the modern age of computer and internet availability appeared to be fine, if not outright inevitable. Yet while statistics show high school graduation rates have risen marginally, those taking the GED are not only struggling to keep up, but in many cases the number of successful graduates via the GED program is dropping--and chief amongst those struggling are prisoners.
Internet and computer availability is supremely lacking in America's prison system. Concerns about safety and the ability to monitor prisoner activity online is one concern, while on-site testing rules and the ability to train teachers are others. Meanwhile, a segment of the civilian population often views computers as a luxury item bestowed upon criminals, and thus shouldn't be supplied.
This draconian behavior of focusing on the punishment angle and not on the correctional angle is what causes a drastic likelihood that prisoners will end up back in jail. According to an NPR report, "A study by the Rand Corporation found that every dollar spent on correctional education programs saves $5 in reincarceration costs. Since the change to the more difficult test, no one has been collecting data on GED pass rates by inmates — but experts say it's clear they are down."
And, it should be noted, not just down for prisoners. In 2012, 401,388 individuals passed the GED test. in 2013, knowing the testing structure was changing, 540,535 passed the barrage of exams, creating a bump. 2014--the first year of computerized testing with the new tests--saw only an estimated 86,000 pass out of 248,000 who attempted to earn their GED. The drop-off is dramatic.
The drop-off is so dramatic--and the cost to take the tests (roughly $120) is so prohibitive to economically disadvantaged people--that some states, like New York and over a dozen others, have either dropped the GED tests or are in the process of creating their own high school equivalency exams.
Moreover, the GED is overseen by the American Council on Education (ACE), a nonprofit organization that owns the trademark on the GED. As of 2011, ACE brought in Pearson, a British company best known for their textbooks and test administration, and turned the GED into a for-profit venture. By 2014, Pearson was solely responsible for developing the test, despite ACE's oversight.
While studies show that attaining a GED typically doesn't translate into a higher economic status, it is still usually the only opportunity available to a large segment of the American population--prisoners included--to improve their life. As Stephen Steurer former executive director of the Correctional Education Association, tells NPR, "We put so many people in prison who are uneducated, and we put them there without any resources [...] We have a golden opportunity when we put people in prison to educate them."
If Steurer had his way, prison wouldn't simply be punishment; prisoners would be forced to educate themselves. "Make part of their sentence that they achieve some skills with some sort of certification that means they can get a job that pays some kind of decent wage," he says.
It's strange, isn't it? The United States has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, and this country takes the one opportunity to "correct" these individuals in a "correctional" facility, and decides to not only eliminate that opportunity --but make it financially profitable for an international company to earn that money on the backs of the most vulnerable in this country.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yes, I have experience teaching in prison. And as I said before...
Full disclosure: I have worked on educational programs through a prison. Some of the smartest, most gifted individuals I've ever known were men who committed a violent crime--often, usually, a crime of passion. A crime I could commit. A crime you could commit. A crime any of us would commit if placed in the same situation, position, or bearing in life.
And these same men I'd trust with my life, despite the fact that some might have already taken the life of another. Because they accomplished the one thing most any of you reading this cannot do--that I cannot do--and that is correct what needs correcting in ourselves.
