Media Coverage

Daily Record
By Lorraine Ash
June 10, 2007

Another path to graduation

Program helps high school dropouts earn GED diploma

Sherdon Warren signed herself out of Morristown High School at the end of her sophomore year. Pregnant, she was too tired to study.

Now that her daughter is 6 months old, Warren is taking the General Educational Development (GED) route to get a state-issued high school diploma. Since April 23 she has attended the NewBridge 70001 JOBS PLUS program in Boonton four days a week.

Warren plans to graduate at the program's June 27 ceremony at the Boonton Elks Club.

"If I went back to high school, I would graduate in 2008," said the 18-year-old, who lives with her mother and daughter. "This way I graduate a year earlier."

Many of the other students, ages 16 through 21, who went through the doors of 70001 in the past year also will don cap and gown, according to Michelle Borden, associate executive director of NewBridge Services, a Pompton Plains-based nonprofit that offers mental health and related services.

Annually the 24-year-old 70001 program, named after the original federal appropriations bill that funded it, attracts some 100 young adults, who are called associates once they enter the program.

Decades later
More than 15 million Americans have successfully taken the GED route since the program began in 1943 to help World War II veterans assimilate into the work world.

Decades later, there still is a need. Eighteen percent of Americans 16 and over -- 39 million people -- do not have a high school diploma, according to the 2000 Census. Seventeen percent of New Jerseyans 16 and over -- almost 1.1 million -- are in the same boat.

The GED program serves people in the United States and its territories as well as Canada, according to Robert MacGillivray, deputy executive director of the GED Testing Service, part of the American Council on Education. Internationally, the program is used by children of diplomats and military personnel as well as foreign nationals who want to attend American colleges.

Successful GED candidates score 2,250 points on a 7.5-hour battery of tests in five subjects -- math, science, reading, writing, social studies -- with no individual test score below 410. In some states, like New Jersey, those who pass get a state-issued high school diploma. In others, they do not.

"We've had many people with GEDs from other states, like Oregon, call to ask if they could trade in theirs for one of ours because we issue diplomas,"said Bob Berezny, state administrator of GED testing in New Jersey. "The answer is no."

Not so easy
Warren plans to attend County College of Morris, and then a four-year school, to become a forensic detective. But first things first. One recent afternoon at the NewBridge Cornelia Street facility she put her feet up and cracked her "GED Social Studies" book, answering questions based on an information chart called "Gun Deaths by County."

Warren said she was doing "bookwork"because she scored less than the required 70 on the social studies test last time she took it.

"It's not as easy as it looks, but I go at my own pace," she said. "They don't rush you here."

The tests are designed to ensure GED candidates can read, compute, communicate and analyze information at a level exceeding 40 percent of high school seniors, according to American Council on Education, which creates the tests, last updated in 2002. The next series will come out in 2011.

Eighteen-year-old Johnny Cruz of Morristown, also in 70001, went the GED route because transferring into Morristown High School from another district, plus medical absences, meant he probably would have had to attend another year and a half, he said. He dropped out last November and spent six months saving for a car and getting his permit.

Last month there was an opening for him to take the GED test and he leapt at it.

"Most classrooms are very quiet, but 70001 is a social environment," he said. "You can work, but you don't work yourself out. I also prefer one subject at a time."

Like Warren, he appreciates the 70001 staff and enjoys field trips, such as one to a local carpet cleaning company to apply for a job.

After graduation, Cruz dreams of a science degree or a career in sound engineering. For the immediate future, though, he may join the Navy "to get benefits, a way through school and life skills.

"If I go to Iraq, hopefully that will be a good learning experience, and nothing bad," he said.

Finding a job path
The student body is ever-changing at 70001, with some associates completing the curriculum in three weeks and others in up to three months. Education coordinator Jason LaPaglia creates an individual curriculum for each associate, though there are times they work together, such as in a recent "Family Feud"-style quiz session in which two teams of associates -- Team Dover and The Sticks -- answered cross-disciplinary questions for points.

"What is Manifest Destiny?" LaPaglia asked one team at a recent session. "What are the first 10 amendments of the Constitution called? Name the five oceans of the world, including the one added in 2000."

Meanwhile, next door, as Warren worked with her social studies, her classmates practiced writing resumes and sample applications with Jill Worrall, employment services coordinator. Worrall also helped individual associates make follow-up calls to potential employers and write letters of resignation.

Worrall helps associates find jobs suited to their situations. In some cases, that means setting them on a long-term path of growth and satisfaction, such as the UPS Earn & Learn Program, which offers $23,000 in educational assistance to employees, and the five-year journeyman program of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Emphasizing all life experience as valuable, Worrall empowers associates by walking them through the process of seeking employment but stopping short of doing the work for them.

Other issues
The sheer size of the GED world has led researchers to study it.

In a 1999 study, the Urban Institute speculated the very presence of GED programs may encourage dropping out.

A National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy Research Brief showed that high school dropouts with very low skills benefit the most from a GED credential. It also found that significant economic differences between dropouts with and without a GED do not appear until four or five years pass.

The highest economic value of GED credentialing, MacGillivray said, comes when a student uses it to get post-secondary education.

But for now, NewBridge 70001 graduates are excited to walk down the graduation aisle in two weeks.

"They try to be so nonchalant," Borden said, "but you can see the excitement."

In the meantime, Bob Parker, NewBridge executive director, has his own homework: to keep the program going on its $175,000 yearly budget, especially as federal funds dwindle. The 70001 program is dependent on federal, county and nonprofit money, as well as corporate and individual donations.

NewBridge, he said, is committed to 70001 and the associates. He called them skilled, dedicated people who just took a little longer to get where they need to be.