Shana's Pathway to Excellence

This week we wanted to bring you an update on our advocacy to create a State Diploma for GED and NEDP recipients. You might remember our effort late last year to support an OSSE proposal that would establish a state-issued diploma for those students who had pursued these alternative pathways to a high school credential. While OSSE’s initial proposal was shelved by the State Board of Education (SBOE) until they could dig deeper into the new policy’s implications, discussions resumed last week at a SBOE public meeting. 

Eight adult learners from Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School testified on the rigor of the new GED, the persistence and dedication they must demonstrate to pass the test, and the injustice in the fact that GED certificates hold less value than a high school diploma in the eyes of many employers and postsecondary institutions.

While we could use our blog this week to harken back to the hard facts that support the creation of a State Diploma in the District, we know the story of Shana Moses, a disconnected youth who struggled for nearly a decade to attain a high school credential, speaks to the heart of the issue much better than we could:

Shana Moses, far right, testifies before the State Board of Education.

My name is Shana Moses, and I’m a 30 year old Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School student and a Ward 8 resident.  I’m ecstatic to express my feeling towards DC offering a State Diploma.

I have personal experience of attending a GED program and being able to overcome certain barriers in my life such as becoming a parent at the age of 16, having to receive public assistance, and working ends-meets jobs that would hire me without having a high school diploma.  I tried to go back to school and finish, but got discouraged when Anacostia High School tried to make me do a grade all over again that I had already completed.  It made me lose hope.  I felt like I was never going to become anything other than another statistic, another young black girl with no education, just having kids.  That’s how the world looks at situations like mine.

Even though I had no high school diploma, I was able to receive many certifications and learned that I have many talents.  This pushed me not to give up, and I hoped my story could help someone else. 

One of my biggest discouragements was when I was told that the GED test would be changing. All of the old test scores would be of no use because the test would be upgraded as well as computerized.  I had passed all the subjects but math, and procrastinated to finish this last section of the test.  I was extremely disappointed in myself.  I couldn’t be mad at anybody but Shana.

Academy of Hope has given me so much positive energy, great support, and mentorship.  As my fellow classmates and I aim for our GED certificate or NEDP diploma, we work just as hard, if not harder than the average high school student.  It’s harder for GED and NEDP students because most of us haven’t been to school in decades and have to be taught from beginning to end in order to pass.  I am learning subjects that I haven’t seen for several years, so you could say for most of my class it’s like a baby just learning to crawl. 

Moreover, earning a passing grade on the new GED is equivalent to earning a high school diploma.  GED 2014 has been revised to be more difficult and in line with requirements of colleges and employers, and it has become an online test that is based on the common core state standards. GED students work extremely hard for this credential and are acquiring skills that meet or exceed 60% of graduating high school students.  We work hard on a day to day basis preparing ourselves to pass the exam.  

Offering the State Diploma would motivate the students even more by allowing them to have more confidence in passing the exam and to reach a goal that many have tried to achieve many times before.  The State Diploma is one of the best ideas that could be thought of for adult learners. It opens more doors to achieving the excellence we’ve earned.

To learn more about how you can support Shana and other #DiplomaBound youth through the creation of a State Diploma, please contact DCAYA Policy Analyst, Amy Dudas (amy@dc-aya.org).

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook,SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

Summer Learning Loss: How Communities Are Reversing the Trend

 

In her June 19 Summer Learning Day message, First Lady Michelle Obama thanked communities for their summertime investments in youth: “Summer shouldn’t just be a vacation. Instead, it should be a time to get ahead, to branch out and learn new skills, to have new experiences…and for anyone who’s fallen behind, it’s a time to catch up on lessons they missed.”

Research shows that summers without quality learning opportunities put our nation’s youth at risk for falling behind – year after year – in core subjects like math and reading. These losses over the summer are cumulative and contribute significantly to the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income kids.

At the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), we continue to develop and provide resources around strengthening and expanding summer learning programs in communities. With the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, our new report, Accelerating Achievement Through Summer Learning is an essential resource for program providers, education leaders, policymakers, and funders who are making important decisions around summer learning programs as a way to accelerate student achievement.

The report profiles thirteen diverse, replicable summer learning program models and demonstrates how these programs address a variety of K-12 education priorities to deliver strong outcomes for children, youth, and educators. As described in the report, we know a lot about the power of summer learning for students and teachers.

• Summer learning programs can erase early reading deficits. More than 80 percent of low-income youth in this country are not proficient in reading by the end of third grade, making them more than four times as likely to drop out of high school as their peers to who reach this critical benchmark. K-3 summer learning programs have been shown not only to mitigate summer learning losses in reading in the early grades, but to accelerate skill development to get young people up to grade level by third grade.

• High-quality summer learning programs level the college and career playing field. Alarming data on the skilled workforce pipeline and need for remedial coursework in two- and four-year colleges have created a national sense of urgency around work-embedded learning, apprenticeships and college preparation programs, particularly for first-generation attenders. Summer youth employment programs are proving critical to keeping students productively engaged and learning, making meaningful contributions to their community, learning valuable job skills, and exploring potential careers.

• Pre-service and in-service teachers want to make the most of their summers. Quality teaching is consistently linked to successfully closing achievement gaps, but most teachers today have between one and two years of experience. Summer learning programs are an increasingly likely place to find the kinds of pipelines into and through the teaching profession that are working. Offering training, mentorship, leadership, and ownership of their work, community-based programs give new teachers additional time to hone their skills, refine lesson plans, and build deeper relationships with students.

Many kinds of high-quality learning opportunities during the summer can make a difference in stemming learning loss. These opportunities can be voluntary or mandatory, at school, community organizations, or even at home. And we know that “quality” is well-defined and rooted in research. A major study from the RAND Corporation shows that individualized academic instruction, parental involvement, and smaller class sizes are a few components of high-quality programs that produce positive results for young people. The “Best Practices in Summer Learning for Middle and High School Youth” resource from NSLA and the New York Life Foundation is an online guide in text and video offering effective ways of engaging older youth in summer learning.

Across the country, NSLA is seeing many states and cities embrace summer learning as a key strategy in helping their students make measurable academic progress.  We hope that if you haven’t already, you will take the pledge to keep kids learning and place your program on our interactive map. Together, we can ensure that students have the opportunity to engage in meaningful learning all year long.

Rachel Gwaltney is the Director of Policy and Partnerships for the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA). She leads development and implementation of services, projects, and partnerships that strengthen summer learning policy and build capacity of state and national leaders and organizations. Learn more about DCAYA's fantastic partner, the National Summer Learning Association, at www.summerlearning.org. And consider attending their Summer Changes Everything annual conference, October 12-14 in Baltimore, MD.