How a privatized GED could hurt New Mexico’s neediest students (Pearson has licensing rights)

[antigop]

http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-7402-testing-out.html

Hernandez, 29, who moved to the US from Mexico City a decade ago, is one of 39 million adults in the country without a high school diploma. Now, she’s getting one-on-one tutoring in math and science and rushing to complete the exam this month because she’s heard some of the impending changes “are scary.”

“It’s going to be computerized, and the price is doubling next year,” Hernandez says worriedly.

Indeed, prices are set to go up to $120—double what Albuquerque’s Youth Development Inc. currently charges adults like Hernandez to take a bubble test. On top of that, the new GED test, which will be based on the national Common Core standards, will be administered solely on computers. That raises questions about the level of student preparation needed, as well as testing centers’ ability to pay for the necessary hardware. At YDI, for instance, administrators say they’ll no longer be able to offer the test onsite because YDI lacks funding for a computer lab.

All of this has educators around the state concerned about how the 2014 test could impact thousands of New Mexicans—and students are rushing to take the exam before it changes.
....
The changes come after testing giant Pearson VUE acquired the licensing rights to the GED test two years ago. Now, Pearson—a for-profit corporation that’s also behind New Mexico Connections Academy, a state-funded virtual charter school set to open this fall—has the power to raise fees and impose new testing restrictions for the GED.

[msongs]

1. race to the top....of the profits nt

[savebigbird]

2. +1,000,000