Legislators OK paying GED costs

The Legislative Council on Friday signed off on Gov. Mike Beebe’s proposal to use $450,000 of the state’s rainy-day funds to ensure that students taking the high school equivalency exam will be charged $16 rather than $120 this year.

The council approved the Democratic governor’s plan over the objections of state Rep. Debra Hobbs, R-Rogers, who is seeking her party’s nomination for governor.

The state Department of Career Education has charged students taking the General Educational Development test $16 since Jan. 1, but the cost would have been $120 in the absence of the infusion of rainy-day funds, department spokesman Deborah Germany said. Students previously paid nothing to take the exam, she said.

Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia, said about 9,000 people take the exam each year.

Hobbs, a former teacher and counselor, noted that the state’s taxpayers will pick up $104 of the cost for the people taking the exam. Test-takers will have to dip into their pockets for $16.

The people taking the exam include “those students who have chosen to drop out of high school who could receive their diplomas the traditional route,” she said.

Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said she appreciates Hobbs’ concerns about the cost to taxpayers.

“I used to have a similar kind of concern until I stopped to look at the numbers,” she said. “They could be costing us what every other student is costing us in the schools every day or we could pay for the GED. If we paid for the whole thing, we would be so far ahead as far as taxpayers are concerned.

“This is not the way I want to get a bang for the buck. But that is really kind of an upside of a downside thing,” said Elliott, a retired teacher.

“It really bothers me the number of students who are dropping out,” she added.

Nearly 2,200 17- and 18-year olds took the exam in 2012, and the majority of them passed the test, said Janice Hanlon, state administrator of the GED for the state Department of Career Education.

James Smith, the department’s deputy director for adult education, said people who pass the GED in Arkansas earn an average of $8,000 more a year over their lifetimes than dropouts who don’t take and pass the test.

“It’s an economic issue,” he said.

Over the past five years, Arkansas’ test-takers’ passing rate has been 84 percent or better, Hanlon said.

Before Jan. 1, the company that produces the test - Pearson - had provided the state with paper test forms. The state’s cost per test was $20.46. But effective Jan. 1, Pearson switched to a computerized format for the test and raised the cost by nearly $100 per test-taker.

Last year, the Legislature enacted Act 1063 to allow the department to charge GED applicants $120, but Beebe sought to reduce the cost. In December, the Board of Career Education approved the $16 fee.

Hobbs said other testing companies have developed high school equivalency exams and offer the test for $50, and she wondered whether state officials considered them.

But Smith said these other tests are brand new and have no track record, and department officials plan to review two other assessments to compare with the GED during the next six months.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/18/2014

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