Introducing: Focus on Policy

Focus on Policy is NCSALL's newest publication. Its purpose is to synthesize research findings and highlight policy implications of these findings. Focus on Policy forgoes the usual academic conventions to provide its readers with an easy-to-understand summary of research. This first issue explores the value of a GED credential, the need to help GED holders be successful in postsecondary education, and ways to help those who do go on to further education and training succeed at it. We chose the most recent overviews of research related to this subject to support the policy implications presented here.

FAST FACTS: THE GED

• The GED (General Educational Development) consists of a battery of five tests, and takes just under eight hours to complete. Four of the five tests are multiple choice, covering mathematics, social studies, science, and interpretation of literature. The fifth test requires writing an essay. The GED tests measure communication, information processing, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.
  
  
• The American Council of Education (ACE) produces and administers the GED tests, and the ACE's Commission on Educational Credit and Credentials sets minimum passing scores. Each state education agency is free to set higher passing standards.
  
  
• Passing scores for the GED test battery are set at a level above that achieved by one-third of traditional high school graduates who are given the test.
  
  
• The GED program was started in 1942 as a means to certify that returning veterans who lacked a high school diploma had sufficient skills to take advantage of the postsecondary education benefits provided in the G.I. Bill. Five years later, the state of New York allowed high school dropouts who were not veterans to seek the GED credential, and other states soon followed. 
  
  
• In the U.S., a total of more than 15 million people have earned a GED, about one in seven high school credentials earned is now a GED, and 655,514 GEDs were awarded in the U.S. last year.

Source: American Council on Education