An oil-slicked slope: Why government programs that herd dropouts toward a GED are cutting students short

It would be easy to forget that anything else has happened in Louisiana over the past few months. But even as the nation’s attention has been transfixed by the enormous environmental and economic disaster caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, life has gone on in the Pelican State.

People have gone to work. Children have gone to school. Football fans are already dreaming of another Super Bowl for the New Orleans Saints. And legislators have hunkered down in Baton Rouge to grind out new laws for Louisianans.

One piece of legislation that might have gotten more attention, in a different time, was state Sen. Jack Donahue’s bill to transfer the state’s adult education division from the Department of Education to the Community and Technical College System.

And perhaps, in a different time, it would have elicited a more passionate debate about how to best improve the state’s dismal dropout record. Instead, the bill passed unanimously through the Louisiana House and Senate with little discussion.

It’s not necessarily a bad law. And we should all give credit where it’s due. In addition to shifting responsibility for adult learners from one division of the government to another, the bill provides measures to discourage 16-year-old students from dropping out of high school — and directs them to enroll in a GED program if they choose to leave. And in taking on this issue, Donahue stands as an example for legislators in other states who believe they are simply too busy with other problems to dive into the murky waters of education policy. Put simply: No state has had more pressing problems than Louisiana this year, and yet its Legislature found time to try to tackle the dropout epidemic.

Like any piece of legislation, however, Donahue’s bill isn’t perfect. And in one respect, in particular, it might do more harm than good.

To many, a GED and a high school diploma might look like the same thing. Both documents indicate the attainment of a certain level of educational competence. Both documents qualify a student to apply for enrollment in most of America’s two- and four-year universities. And both documents offer the potential of greater lifetime wages over those who dropped out of high school altogether.

But in directing dropouts toward the GED, rather than encouraging re-enrollment in a traditional or alternative high school program, Louisiana’s new law might be cutting its students short, because a GED is absolutely not the same thing as a high school diploma.

Here’s one rather ironic example of why: More than 60 years after it was created as a way for veterans returning from World War II to obtain their high school equivalency, thus qualifying them for college, the military won’t accept most GED holders into its ranks. In a time in which the United States is at war on two fronts, recruits with a high school diploma, and no other physical or criminal impediments, are almost guaranteed a place in uniform. Those with a GED, on the other hand, are considered second-class recruits; in most cases the military won’t accept them without additional college credits. Those hoping to get into the service with a GED alone have been known to travel hundreds and even thousands of miles in chase of a recruiter with a coveted “GED-only” slot to offer.

Why is the military so down on the GED? Department of Defense studies show that only about half of GED holders make it through their first enlistment without quitting or being kicked out. Is it fair to paint an entire group of potential recruits as potential quitters or misfits? Perhaps not. But the U.S. military is in the business of fighting wars, not being fair to all those who might wish to serve their nation.

And employers tend to see things in the same light.

"The GED is not a substitute for a high school," Mary Reimer of the National Dropout Prevention Center told Time Magazine. "And most employers would tell you that, too. They would pass up a GED holder for a high school graduate any day."

A recent study — by the recipient of a Nobel Prize in Economics, no less — backs that assertion. In his research, James J. Heckman has found that the GED doesn’t provide any additional value in the labor market. In fact, Heckman found, male GED holders might actually make less than dropouts and female GED holders likely make just over 1 percent more money than dropouts do. 

One possible reason: About a quarter of all prison inmates are now leaving the clink with a GED. Heckman and his co-authors at the University of Chicago suggested that might weaken the value of a GED, “by its association with criminality.”

Making matters worse, Heckman’s paper suggests, is that the widespread availability and perceived easiness of the GED test might act as a siren’s song to restless high school students. One National Center for Education Statistics survey, for instance, found that 40 percent of dropouts said they left school in part because “it would be easier to get the GED.” Only a small number actually did so.

Heckman’s paper suggests that government programs — like Louisiana’s new initiative — might be fueling the popularity of a piece of paper that is a lot less valuable than its reputation suggests. Their study likened the GED to “wearing a broken watch and knowing that it is broken.”

Or, just to bring things full circle: Watching helplessly from shore as an oil spill ruins your coast.

Louisiana can do better by its students. And so can the rest of us. Before shuffling students into GED programs, we should exhaust all other options that would produce graduates with a bona fide high school diploma.

Gregg Rosann is a founder and president of The American Academy, which partners with school districts across the country to offer former dropouts the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. For more information about the Academy and its programs, visit NoDropouts.com