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A lifelong goal was realized recently by 97-year-old Amarillo resident Evie Eaves. Evie completed her high school equivalency exam at Amarillo College and received her certificate in a ceremony at Craig Methodist Retirement Community, surrounded by well-wishers.

Evie was born in Oklahoma in 1910 and attended school through eighth grade. With the nearest high school seven miles away, Evie said it was too far to walk. She stayed at home to help with the family farm, then married at age 17 and moved to Pampa. While her husband worked in the oil fields, Evie worked in local retail stores. The couple raised a son and had been married 62 years when Mr. Eaves died in 1989. Evie taught Sunday School for many years afterward at Central Baptist Church in Pampa. She came to Amarillo to live at The Canyons Retirement Community in 2000, then moved to Craig Methodist Retirement Community about three years ago.

Throughout the years, Evie never lost the desire to earn a high school diploma. Several months ago the subject came up during a conversation her great-granddaughter, who urged Evie to consider getting a GED.

“She talked me into it,” Evie said. “I had no self-confidence but she kept saying, ‘you can do it, you can do it.’ “

Amarillo College’s Testing Center provides GED certification, so contacting AC was the next step. The GED test measures high school level proficiency in five areas: Writing Skills, Social Studies, Science, Literature, and Mathematics. AC Testing Specialist Paula Sosebee was Evie’s contact person at AC. She arranged for Evie to take the five tests at separate times and she also acted as the woman’s scribe.

“Evie has macular degeneration, so she doesn’t see well,” says Sosebee. “I would read the question to her, she would give me the answer and I would write it down. She did incredibly well.”

Before testing, Evie studied hard on her own and also got some help from friends, family and Craig Methodist staff members. A family friend volunteered to shuttle her to and from AC.

“I asked her when she was going to take her test and she said ‘Whenever I find a way over there,’ so I said ‘I’ll take you,’” says Pampa resident and longtime friend Carol Hermanski. “I drove back and forth and we got it done.”

Evie had to score a minimum of 410 to pass each test, but had to have a 450 average to attain her GED. Evie was surprised to learn that her highest grade, 510, came in her hardest subject: science. She says she enjoyed the math section the most.

“Evie’s lowest score on any of the tests was 450,” Sosebee says. “She was totally prepared.”

According to Sosebee, a GED client of Evie’s age is almost unheard of. The oldest client Sosebee had worked with before was 79 years old.

“Most of the time, if they haven’t done it by the time they reach their fifties, they don’t do it,” says Sosebee.

In fact, a call to the national American Council on Education office appeared to indicate Evie may be the oldest person to ever earn a GED. She’ll definitely be the oldest graduate walking across the stage in March, during a ceremony for all GED recipients.

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Preparing for the GED is just part of the process of taking the GED. This article describes what test day will be like for the GED.

Regardless of the location you take the GED test at, you will have to register before the actual exam. Be sure you arrive at the testing center plenty of time before the test starts-30 minutes is a fair amount. Be warned that if you arrive late, you may not be admitted into the test and your fees will be forfeited. At registration, you will be asked for some form of identification. According to Thomson Prometric, www.prometric.com, your ID must bear four things:

1) Your name as given at the time of registration

2) Your signature

3) A date of birth to verify that you are at least 17 years old

4) A recent, recognizable photograph.

If the registrar questions your first ID, then you will simply be asked to produce a second ID that matches the above requirements. If you don’t have an ID with all the above requirements then there are other ways to register and be admitted into the GED test. For example, as Thomson Prometric states, ask an official at the institution you attend/attended to verify your identity on an official letterhead stationary, affix a photo to the letter and have the title, signature, and institution seal overlap the photo. On the other hand, you may affix a recent photo of yourself on a blank piece of paper, indicate your physical description, sign the paper, and have it notarized. The seal must overlap the photo.

The GED test is very strict in its standards. At the testing center, you will be photographed, and the test session will be videotaped. Two signatures are required of you-one before the test and one after. Naturally, you will have assigned seating. Be sure to eat and smoke before you take the test because there is no food, drink, or tobacco allowed in the test.

Also, take note that no type of teaching aid is allowed. This means everything from a calculator (including wrist watch calculators) to highlighter pens and from books to anything electronic (cell phones included) are not allowed into the teaching area. The test takers provide everything you need-the test, scratch paper, and a pencil. If you have a problem with your computer where you take your test, or if you have a problem on the test itself raise your hand to get the administrator’s attention.

If you are dismissed from a test session, you will not be eligible for another test for two months.

For more information please visit,
http://www.ged-testonline.com
http://www.gedmaster.com

Earning a high school diploma is one of the milestones for students who come to the United States from other countries. But for those who arrive in their middle to late teens, learning enough English to earn a diploma can seem all but impossible.

Some students from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, however, are discovering an option that has received little public attention, even among educators: the Spanish-language version of the General Educational Development test.

The GED certificate, which is recognized by all states as the equivalent of a high school diploma, can be earned by taking the GED test in Spanish or French, as well as English.

As debate over immigration simmers in Congress and among the public, the foreign-language GED could get more scrutiny. Though the debate has centered on border security and the status of illegal immigrants, the issue of language—especially as it relates to the large proportion of newcomers who speak Spanish—is closely intertwined. ("Bid to Make English the ‘National Language’ Raises Many Questions,” this issue.)

Oscar changes for his evening job as a waiter in Putnam County, N.Y. He says that earning a GED in Spanish has allowed him to move on to community college.
—Photo by Emile Wamsteker for Education WeekAbout 4 percent of the nation’s 666,000 GED test-takers take the Spanish version. A smaller proportion take it in French. Some states, such as California, don’t distinguish on GED certificates or high-school-equivalency diplomas what language the GED test was taken in.

Debate over what language should be used in GED preparation classes and testing has mostly been confined to those who work in adult literacy.

“Within the adult education world, there’s a fair amount of controversy as to whether the [GED] instruction is offered in Spanish or English,” said Cheryl L. Keenan, the director of the division of adult education and literacy in the U.S. Department of Education. The federal government provides states about $560 million a year in grants for adult basic education, but doesn’t prescribe or track whether the aid is used for instruction in English or another language, she said.

The national GED test, designed to assess core high school knowledge, is developed by the GED Testing Service, an arm of the Washington-based American Council on Education. The Spanish version is basically a direct translation of the English-language version that has been field-tested with bilingual test-takers, explained Lyn Schaefer, the director of test development for the testing service.

Jim J. Boulet Jr., the executive director of English First, a Springfield, Va.-based organization that wants to make English the official language of the United States and opposes bilingual education, said last week that programs such as Spanish GED classes, which he acknowledged he hadn’t previously known existed, are a “terrible idea” and deserve closer scrutiny.

“The money should be spent on English classes,” he said.

Cathy Balestrieri, a vocational-program administrator in New York’s Westchester County, agrees that immigrants need to learn English, but says it also makes sense to provide them with proof of their skills in Spanish as part of their education.

“If a kid has zero credits and is 17, he doesn’t want to be sitting in a 9th grade class,” she said. “What we’re doing with our marketing and recruiting is saying, ‘You’re going to make yourself more marketable if you have the Spanish GED, some English, and a trade.’ ”

Getting the Word Out
The GED test is taken mostly by adults who did not receive a high school diploma because they dropped out or never met state graduation requirements. The exam is a series of five tests that cover mathematics, science, reading, writing, and social studies. In 2004, the average age of a GED test-taker was 25, though 32 percent of test-takers that year were ages 16 to 18.

The number of people taking the test dropped dramatically from 2001 to 2002, when the test was made more difficult, Ms. Schaefer of the GED Testing Service said. The number of all GED test-takers has increased each year since 2002, but still has not reached the peak of nearly 1.1 million in 2001.

Some state administrators of the GED say the demand for the Spanish version of the test is growing in regions of their states with a lot of Latinos.

Robert M. Berezny, the state administrator for GED testing in New Jersey, said he’s planning to open at least one testing center next year geared completely to providing the GED in Spanish, staffed with Spanish-speakers who can get the word out about the test.

“The belief in the community is that if they’re able to take the test in Spanish, more people would come out and take the test,” he said.

Don Soifer, the executive vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va., that generally opposes bilingual education, said he doesn’t have a problem with immigrants who have attended U.S. schools only for a short time, or not at all, taking the GED test and preparation coursework in Spanish.

But he added: “If the ability to offer and take the GED in Spanish provides an incentive for schools to put the limited-English-proficient kid on a GED track rather than a regular high school education track, that undermines the goals of inclusiveness.”

New York Program
Here at a Spanish-language GED program in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., located north of New York City in Westchester County, educators try to strike a balance between helping immigrant youths get a regular diploma in their home schools and encouraging them to try alternative schooling if they are running out of time.

Many of the 35 youths enrolled at the Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, who are working on a Spanish GED say they chose that path because it’s not feasible for them to get a regular high school diploma.

It’s also uncertain if those in the group who are undocumented—a majority of them, according to their teachers—will get papers to live legally in the United States anytime soon. But it is possible, the students say, to get a GED in Spanish.

Oscar takes a shot during a Memorial Day pick-up soccer game. He hopes to become a Spanish teacher some day.
—Photo by Emile Wamsteker for Education WeekFor example, 20-year-old Marco Cuzco, an immigrant from Ecuador who is waiting for the results from his recent Spanish GED test, transferred from a regular high school to the BOCES program last year in 11th grade after he realized he had only 11 of the 21 credits he needed to graduate. He had passed only two of the five required New York Regents exams.

Mr. Cuzco arrived in the United States when he was 15 and can converse well in English, but he said he doubted that he could pass the English Regents exam. “I learned English fast, but for the Regents English, you have to speak and write like an American student,” he said.

In addition, his father, with whom he lives, was pressing him to devise a plan to support himself. So the younger Mr. Cuzco opted for a school day in which he prepared for the Spanish GED for two hours, took classes in English as a second language for two hours, and studied plumbing—in English–for two hours.

The Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES offers a number of vocational programs, including cosmetology, masonry, and culinary arts, in Spanish. One of those programs—a course on becoming a home health aide—is designed for students who don’t have papers to live legally in this country and aren’t eligible to sit for state licensing exams because they aren’t legal residents, said Ms. Balestrieri, who is the principal of the BOCES secondary education vocational program.

Ms. Balestrieri said that most of the students in the Spanish GED program arrived in the United States at age 16 or older, without any English skills, and had stopped their formal education at the 5th or 6th grade in their home countries.

She explained that the students in the BOCES secondary school program are enrolled in any of 18 home school districts in the region, which pays the cooperative-services board about $10,000 in tuition a year per student.

“We want the students to learn English,” said Fernando Gomez, who teaches the Spanish GED classes here. But because their formal schooling in their home countries was interrupted, his students need to improve their literacy skills in their own language at the same time they are learning English, he added.

“It’s not a problem of English or Spanish. It’s a problem of comprehension,” he said.

A Graduate’s Experience
During a recent lesson, Mr. Gomez asked his students to write a summary of a newspaper article about the national immigration debate. He reviewed their work with them to make sure they included an introduction, one or two paragraphs of explanation, and a conclusion—skills that he says are required on the Spanish GED.

In another class, he invited a former student who is attending community college to speak about how a GED in Spanish was a steppingstone to more education.

Oscar, whose last name is being withheld because he is undocumented, earned his GED in Spanish in 2004 through the BOCES program. He told the students that he’s had to study much harder in college than he did in the BOCES program. “Everything is in English,” he said in Spanish.

Oscar, 22, hopes to transfer to a four-year college and become a Spanish teacher.

Mr. Gomez used Oscar’s story to make a positive point to the class: Lack of documented status should not deter an immigrant from trying to get an education in this country.

“Here is a student without papers,” he said, speaking of Oscar. He told his students to consider Oscar’s situation should Congress provide a way for millions of undocumented immigrants to become legal U.S. residents.

“In the waiting line for a job is Oscar and someone else who doesn’t have the same level of education,” he said. “Who is going to get the job?”

For more information, please visit:
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When deciding whether or not to study from home for the GED, a person should consider if he or she has the self-discipline to buckle-down and focus on the task at hand.

The decision to study and take the GED to earn a High School Equivalency Certificate, is a momentous one. Having an education that is parallel to a high school diploma will help to advance one in his or her career or to continue with his or her education. Another good decision a person can make after committing him or herself to taking the GED test is to prepare with an online study tutorial.

There are advantages and disadvantages to participating in an online study tutorial. The advantages are the flexibility in the amount of time spent studying and the freedom to study and prepare for the GED at a person’s own leisure. If a person were to sign up for a physical classroom session, then he or she would be committed to the scheduled class times, the pace of the class and what information is covered. With an online tutorial, a person is able to completely self-manage in order to prepare for the GED.

This is where the disadvantage comes in. Some people are not able to be self-motivated or self-structured. This is not necessarily a bad thing; there are just some people who perform better with the structure and guidance of a instructor or professional in a classroom atmosphere. Also, even though studying at home for the GED may seem appealing, with the commitments of family and work, it may be hard for a person to carve out time in his or her schedule to sit down for a couple of hours at a time to study, especially if the person is studying from his or her personal home.

These are a few of the pros and cons that a person should weigh when deciding whether studying at home for the GED is right for him or her. Regardless of how one may go about it, taking the time to prepare for the GED test is taking a step in the right direction towards a more advantageous future.

Spanish speakers who plan on taking the General Educational Development (GED) Exam have resources that can help them prepare. Read on to find out what is available to help make the test-taking process as stress free as possible.

GED Exam in Spanish

It is as equally important for Spanish-speaking individuals to practice for the GED exam as it is for native speakers. Fortunately, there are many resources for Spanish-speakers that can help them prepare for the exam. Local programs are available that offer test prep courses in Spanish for each subject covered (reading, writing, social studies, science, and mathematics) on the exam.

Prep Classes in Spanish

Spanish-speakers should contact the Family Literacy Infoline at 1-877-FAMLIT1 (1-877-326-5481), or visit the National Center for Family Literacy, www.famlit.org, website for information on where to take GED prep classes in Spanish. There are many classes available to Spanish-speaking students. One example is from the Multicultural Institute (www.mionline.org). The Multicultural Institute is a nonprofit organization located in California that offers programs that enhance educational, economic and health opportunities, cultivate leadership development, and stimulate positive transformation of individuals, families, and communities. While the Kentucky Educational Television website (www.ket.org) offers writing programs, which are translations of the original lessons in English, they are not appropriate for students preparing for the GED exam. These programs are mostly helpful to Spanish-speaking students who want to develop their understanding of English grammar.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.ged-testonline.com
http://www.gedmaster.com