WESTFIELD — State education officials are phasing out the old GED test in favor a new high school equivalency exam.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Malden says it has selected the Educational Testing Service to administer the new exam in Massachusetts.
The new series of exams will replace the General Education Development assessment, which is no longer being offered by the GED Testing Service.
State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said the ETS is “an experienced testing company that will deliver a high quality exam.”
The new exam, which will simply be called HiSET, will continue to measure whether adult learners and out-of-school youth qualify for the Massachusetts High School Equivalency Certificate.
According to guidelines, adults who are 18 years old and older may only take the high school equivalency test if they have not previously received a high school diploma, 16 and 17-year-olds may take the test only if they are no longer enrolled in school.
The Westfield Community Education program has been in operation for five years, and graduated 24 GED students in June.
The WCE program has helped over over 100 students earn their GED diplomas over the past five years, and pupils have a successful rate of completion, around 80 percent.
Those who have been involved with the WCE since it’s infancy worry about where the state’s new testing will take the program.
“It’s just going to be a difficult scenario and a difficult process,” said Ann Lentini, director of Domus Inc., an organization which offers affordable housing to low and moderate income families, the homeless, and the mentally and physically disabled in nine housing buildings around the city. “There’s no indication of the cost or form, but we do know it’s going to be more expensive.”
Lentini said that the next round of the organization’s former-GED, now HiSET, prep courses have a registration date of January 14, but even though classes are set to begin the next week on January 21, she believes the materials for the new course are going to be hard to come by.
“It’s going to take more time to learn,” Lentini said. “There are still so many unanswered questions. I don’t know why they switched (tests). Everyone is just waiting to see what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Regarding what her program will be doing later this month, the Domus Inc. Director borrowed an apt metaphor for the frigid temperatures outside Friday.
“We’re just going to plow ahead,” she said. “We have no choice.”
