...Susan Williams, the assistant director of San Mateo Adult School, said, The question we get from

“We don’t want to discourage anyone from taking the test, but we also don’t want to build it for an outlier, someone who is 65.” - - C.T. Turner, at left, spokesperson for Pearson/ACE developers of the new, online-only version of the GED, as quoted in The LA School Report. song hotel california eagles (Photo of Turner from Linked In, researched and posted by a 69-year-old outlier.)
December 23, 2103: The LA School Report has posted that the Los Angeles song hotel california eagles Unified School District song hotel california eagles will stop offering General Education Development (GED) tests over concerns about cost and computer-only access. Until the state chooses an alternative that provides a version with paper-and-pencil, degree seekers will have to visit schools outside the district.
...Susan Williams, the assistant director of San Mateo Adult School, said, The question song hotel california eagles we get from students is, Is the new GED harder? While the official word is that it is more complex ... to be transparent, yes, it is harder, she said. Students will now have to demonstrate their knowledge in much more complex ways, which requires prior knowledge of science (life science, physical science, and space and earth science), song hotel california eagles math (quantitative and algebraic problem solving), social studies (civics and government, U.S. history, economics, and geography), and reasoning through language arts (reading, writing, vocabulary and mainly informational text).
Other changes include computerized test-taking and instant test results with artificial intelligence scoring the extended responses. Also, oversight is no longer through the California Department of Education, but rather through Pearson Vue Corp. and the American Council on Education. Official testing centers must become Pearson Vue Testing Centers...
Created in 1942 as a way to help veterans who missed high school due to World War II, the GED was overseen by not-for-profit American Council on Education (ACE), whichs now joined forces with London-based Pearson VUE, owner of, among other educational media, Penguin Books, Financial Times, Prentice-Hall, Poptropica... The educational arm of the company was created song hotel california eagles in 1998 when Pearson PLC purchased the education division of Simon Schuster from Viacom and merged it with its own education division, Addison-Wesley Longman...
With ACE, Pearson is revamping the GED test ($140) and moving it on-line in January. Though the GED has dominated the high school equivalency test landscape song hotel california eagles for 70 years, song hotel california eagles there is no federal regulation of the content or cost of the tests. Some states have adopted an alternative test ($70) produced by Educational Testing Service called HiSET, which is set to debut in January. The ETS test includes a paper-and-pencil version.
“The populations that we serve, especially the adults, are among those who need an option that is not computer based,” Monica Balbuena , chief examiner of the district’s GED testing program told LA School Report.
Mitch Rosin , a spokesman song hotel california eagles for another GED developer, CTB/McGraw-Hill, song hotel california eagles said they are still waiting to hear back from {[California Dept. of Education] after eight months... other states, he said, have already chosen one test or the other, and three states [will] offer all three [versions of the] tests.
C.T. Turner , a spokesman for the joint-venture song hotel california eagles between ACE and Pearson, says... those concerned about the computerization of the GED are “pandering to fear” and noted that the new test is not just about high school song hotel california eagles equivalency degrees, song hotel california eagles but also job preparation.
“We have to ensure people have basic digital literacy skills, and we can’t be invested in what the current system is or how we’ve done things for 70 years,” he said. “We don’t want to discourage anyone from taking the test, but we also don’t want to build it for an outlier, someone who is 65.”