Fewer Ohioans try for GEDs after price of test triples

The number of Ohioans receiving their GED plummeted after the testing service tripled the price of taking the test, changed its format and made it more difficult.

The Ohio Department of Education said the state awarded an average of nearly 17,000 GEDs each year between 2000 and 2013, but that the state is on track to award less than 4,000 high-school equivalency degrees this year, The Columbus Dispatch reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/1ggmJV1).

In 2014, about 2,000 Ohioans obtained a GED — down from more than 15,000 the previous year. The rate of those who passed the GED fell to 49 percent for participants who completed the entire test. Rates had been at least in the mid-70s before the change.

When looking at those who didn’t complete the whole test, the passage rate dropped to 33 percent last year and 31 percent so far this year — less than half the rates of any year since 2000.

The newspaper reports that the decline coincides with the testing service tripling the price of the test to $120 and migrating from a paper test to a computer-only model.

Officials with the for-profit GED Testing Service, which administers the test, didn’t return repeated telephone calls, the Dispatch reported.

David Cordonnier, an aide for state Sen. Peggy Lehner, who leads the Senate Education Committee, said the panel will examine issues with the test in the fall.

Not only is the test more expensive, it’s harder, said Pegeen Cleary Potts, executive director of career and technical education for Columbus City Schools, one of the largest GED-preparation organizations in Franklin County.

“Everything was elevated. People got that word, and it even created more of a panic,” Potts said. “Whenever there’s any kind of change, people just get afraid.”

And the test might be too difficult.

“The test needs to be able to tell us if someone has the basic skills to hold down a job and not be reflective of college readiness,” he said. “At this point, unsurprisingly, we don’t have solutions for the costs, rigor or plunging passage rates.”