Without State’s $2 Million, GED Exams Could Be in Jeopardy

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The New York Sun

New York could stop administering General Educational Development exams at the end of the year if the governor doesn’t come up with $2 million to finance the program, the state Education Department said yesterday. If that happens, tens of thousands of New Yorkers could be denied the opportunity to take the exam, which can qualify people for jobs, college, and the military.


“This is not a frill. There are thousands of kids who will be left academically stranded, and in some cases economically stranded,” the chairman of the Assembly’s Education Committee, Steven Sanders, said. “They will not be able to take the exam for another year.”


If the state stopped administering the exam, New Yorkers could sign up to take the GED in another state. But some states, including New Jersey, require test-takers to prove residency, and most states charge a fee to out-of state test-takers.


New York spends $4 million each year administering the tests to between 55,000 and 60,000 people who did not graduate from high school but who want the equivalent of a diploma.


“We have met with legislative and executive staff to find alternative funding for this important program,” a spokesman for the Education Department, Tom Dunn, said. “We are looking for a solution.”


Mr. Dunn said that for this year the state has enough money to pay for the administration of the GED through the end of December.


Mr. Sanders, a Democrat of Manhattan, said that for the past two years the state has used $2.1 million provided under the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act to help pay for the administration of the tests. The entire GED budget is $4 million.


But four months ago, the director of the federal Department of Education’s division of adult education and literacy, Cheryl Keenan, notified Albany that it could no longer use that money to pay for administration of the exams, because the federal funds are meant for local programs.


“I have carefully reviewed New York’s arguments to support the use of AEFLA funds to score GED tests, but do not find them persuasive,” she wrote. “Consequently, I must reiterate the finding of this department that New York may not use AEFLA funds for scoring the GED.”


The state agency knew about the impending shortfall in July, before the state’s budget agreement, but no one in the Legislature found out about the problem until a few weeks ago, Mr. Sanders said.


He said it’s now up to Governor Pataki to come up with extra money.


“The solution to this is that the person who caused this has to fix it,” he said. “And the person who caused it is the governor.”


He said the governor wanted to cut millions of dollars from the state Education Department’s budget this year.


“The SED, in order to make ends meet, has to forage and scrounge for money,” Mr. Sanders said. “In this case, they took federal dollars that were not appropriate for this use, and the federal government told them so.”


The governor’s office did not return telephone calls seeking comment.


A spokeswoman for the city’s education department, Michele McManus said, “Preserving GED is a critically important matter to the Department of Education.”


After talks with the state’s Education Department and budget division, she said, “We have faith that the state will resolve this.”


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