Lexington Herald-Leader
Posted Thursday, October 7, 2004
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By Murray Evans

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FRANKFORT - A state school board committee yesterday unanimously recommended passage of a GED program that would be accessible to struggling students while they still are in high school.

The full board was to vote today on the proposal, which would allow students who are 16 years old to take the exam to receive a General Educational Development certificate.

Kentucky's current GED program is an adult program administered through the Council on Postsecondary Education. Participants have to be 17 or older and out of school for a year to take the exam, unless they receive a superintendent's waiver.

The theory behind the proposed program is that schools can at least provide assistance in taking the GED test to students who are planning to drop out anyway. After a student drops out, that assistance isn't available, said Dorie Combs, the chairwoman of the state Board of Education's curriculum committee, which recommended the program.

Combs said state superintendents and principals "are ready to open the doors and help kids who are ready for this program."

Opponents, however, said it will provide a way for schools to quietly pass through their systems' low-performing students who would otherwise drag down test scores.

"This is a get-home-free card for superintendents across the state to push kids who won't test well though the system," said Richard Innes, spokesman for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions.

About 6,500 16- to 18-year-olds enrolled in GED classes last year, with about 3,500 passing the exam, according to preliminary figures from the council. Kentucky schools lost more than 7,000 dropouts in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

State law permits students to drop out of school at age 16.

The program is designed for "students who are on their way out the door," Combs said during the committee's meeting. "When they walk out the door and drop out, the services from schools end. All the support services and that network is gone.

"This is the best, last hope," she said. "That's what this is. It is not our first choice, it is not what we really want to do, but it's better than being on the street."

Under the proposal, students entering the program would have to be at least 16 and two grades behind the cohort group the student entered high school with, or have earned at least four credits toward graduation. Students would have to "be provided all available intervention and support options to complete regular high school graduation requirements" before being admitted to the program.

"We do not encourage students to drop out of school," Combs said.

Innes said such a program would "create tremendous temptations" for borderline students to simply get their GED instead of finishing high school and would give participating schools "a second-tiered, watered-down diploma program."

The state Legislature would have to approve any recommendation made by the school board, and Innes said his group would continue fighting the program.