“In addition
to all that I have had a few words published in the past about how universal
pre-k for the entire nation needs to be balanced by the education of adults or
the parents of those children (young and older), but nobody listened to me.
Former mayor Bill DeBlasio got a lot of credit starting that up and the
education of adults has since suffered greatly. And it is still the same under
a new mayor and a new chancellor in New York City and elsewhere.”
I quote my
own published article. This is from
Guardrail of
Anti-Semitism Middle School S.O.S.
Posted December
15, 2022
You
can click here!
I have just
placed this keystone of support for our nation’s children and adults right here
after sending this piece out to school districts in Ohio and Florida. I am
making this available to New York City now and the rest of our nation. It is
time to wake up everybody.
In this report and request
for important educational conferences for our nation, statistics will be
provided. The range of success among the states varies and the 2013 statistics
show success of delivery to the people from 4.8 percent down to about 1
percent. The reader of this report may look at that as only 3 percent
difference or so without realizing its true mathematical significance which is
a state that had 40,000 diplomas in a year could have had 80,000 to 120,000
diplomas in a year. New York’s mayor now realizes that 80 percent of the men
and women in the jail of New York City have no diploma. That is a message for
all states and all jails to consider. Just think of those numbers as interest
earned in another state where the interest is higher.
When I was
teaching G.E.D. before 2001 in New York City, I realized that I was not just
teaching a course I was helping people make up years of work to graduate. I
wanted students to know more. At no time did I ever think about the “social
welfare” costs to society which were in the tens of billions of dollars. Those
costs may now be in the hundreds of millions, especially as crime is spiking
around our nation.
And among
other things in my retirement, I wrote a grant proposal for The Department of
Justice to help gang members from Long Island, New York to New Jersey obtain
the G.E.D. through my methodology. That proposal was rejected immediately
because the non-for-profit that I was coordinating things with did not come
through at the last minute for me.
The question
is just what is Mayor Adams of New York City with his team of people including
the Department of Education doing to make things much better? And this goes for
mayors across our nation (Republican states where Trump won in 2016 must be
examined carefully because 12 of those states have been among the worst in the
delivery of diplomas to African Americans where only 8 states were states where
Clinton won that year). The worst states had a gap of 20 percent up to 30
percent which is probably not known by the people and the elected officials.
And I call those states “plantation states.” Click on my article about that here. Two years have gone by since the
publication of that article.
And keep in
mind that back in the days when David Patterson was governor, I was handed
information at a meeting on the senate side in Albany that I had helped put
together. The information showed that in one year nobody had taken and passed
the GED in Rikers. I quickly called the right-hand man of the governor to find
out what had happened, and he called the education department immediately.
Shouldn’t the public be informed of the success or lack of success of that
program. I would like to know what the reports contained for other years, and
we should compare the most recent results to look for improvement in the
delivery of diplomas.
I have
written about the ineptitude of Michael Bloomberg and Bill DeBlasio in the
past. Will I be writing the same things about Eric Adams in four more years or
more? Bloomberg and I spoke on a radio program, and he told me that NYC could
not get gang members into GED classes because they came from “dysfunctional
families.” How about that?
In New York
City some or all the district attorneys’ offices are sending young people who
are caught with guns to study for the G.E.D. How successful is this attempt to
help and how has the program done in the past? It would be great to know what
is going on so I would recommend a study of that. It’s the public’s right to
know! And thinking about that Bloomberg comment, just how many of those youth
are or were gang members?
I recently
watched The City and State Education Conference attended by the key players of
education in New York and there was only a brief mention by Chancellor David
Banks about Rikers without presenting any other information and any great news.
I later asked most members of the City Council of New York to watch and analyze
that educational forum. What has happened since?
I have made
calls to The U.S. Department of Education and read about the slide in
graduation rate in Florida since the pandemic in the last 24 hours. So what is
going on to make things better? How many of those Florida dropouts have not
earned their G.E.D. because they are not trying to for one reason or another?
And I learned that state tests there were suspended during COVID-19 and that is
a form of lockdown and students graduated even without taking their tests there
(in 2021 16,000 students graduated who would not have because they were not
required to take state exams). My research took me to a presentation of a few
leaders of Broward County where community concerns included the criminal
justice system and the pipeline to prison and GED access. I also learned that
the charter schools are lagging behind the neighborhood schools of Broward County
as it was mentioned that the graduation rate of 83 percent could have been 93
percent if the charter schools had not been included. I noticed a long time ago
that the charter schools were having problems.
And in
Broward County alone there are over 100,000 students who were not proficient on
their state exams and there was no lockdown there by unions or anyone else. And
that state is approaching 100,000 deaths due to his mishandling of COVID-19.
And a major
part of this warning is this. I have seen school boards that never learned how
to do the right thing from 2001 to today. And now governors wish control over
school boards and other key education decisions. Both are wrong! They are both
wrong because the essential thing is to do the right thing. None of these
governors can be compared, for example, to Solomon the Wise. And there was a
Wise who was governor whose state was one of the worst in the nation for high
school graduation. The key thing for governors right now is to learn much more
and to have education secretaries learn more. I am asking people to look more
closely here right now at Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio and reject outright the
wishes of powerful people who don’t know enough. This list could be expanded to
include even more. Illinois now gives out a GED as a high school diploma. It
was the right-hand man of Jeb Bush who told me about how Florida was doing that
in 2001. And at that time, Florida did it because it had the highest passing
marks on each part of the GED test (5 points more each test). But, now get
this. When the new test came out and Florida did not raise those 5 parts at
all, it continued to give out high school diplomas to people. This fooled the
people of Florida. Why has Illinois decided to do the same thing? I dunno!
And this is
a short picture of Florida today “where woke goes to die” but I say it is the
state where far too many people and people in power Watch Our Klan Excel or
another kind of woke! And you know why I have placed the emphasis on the hateful
atmosphere there, its leadership, and the legislation.
And there
was an article about police detailing how morale has been a problem, mentioning
bail, but not demonstrating just how large the problem is in relation to total
crime. What was mentioned in relation to schools though was truancy which
impacts on student growth. That problem was evident in GED classes as students
were taken off the class roster, sometimes returning which was a welcome sign. And
we know that truancy was a significant problem around the United States during
the pandemic. My question is just how many youth who fit into that category
were helped by being given the green light to get their GED? Do we know if
schools everywhere reacted well to that challenging situation or not?
Right here
is what students need in either G.E.D. or state tests so they can catch up
fast. I had a G.E.D. Practice Test program from 2003 to 2014. Each subject had 25
questions which were all multiple-choice questions. And students had to know
critical thinking skills back then. The students who got lots of questions
wrong could learn from the program what they had to know from the start of the
test. Learning everything does not mean that the student is suddenly equal to a
person who can get everything right from the beginning. It does move the needle
for the student to become more proficient. And that is badly needed among high
percentages of students who do not perform well on state tests.
And I have
added here today that this effort can be and must be supported by technology as
the exchange of information can reach a great number of students in need at one
time, students who require remediation in any skill in their core subjects.
This means communication between the school and the home (parents for
children). Ask me more about that!
This
information will appear again in this paper and the following material was
written last.
Moving
students along right away at full speed helps the students, makes the parents
aware by communication that their children are accelerating at a strong pace
which permits their children to catch up to others.
One of my
students in 1999-2000 told me that a dean of a college told Oprah on her show
that teachers do not get the chance to go over tests. Think of the state tests
that the students have taken. And the same is true of GED tests and other
tests.
Practice
testing is the key to success in GED classes and it was the key to the success
of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a charter school in Harlem in New York City. How
do students catch up in other schools as they leave. One million students have
left their schools in the last few years, according to reports.
When a
student can retest on that practice test immediately (without any help from
anyone or answers), we can watch the communication with the student. Students
will remember answers that they gave on their answer sheet. And they will also
see right away answers that they had not intended to put (wrong answers).
And as
students redo questions that were answered wrong or reread the material,
questions, and the five multiple choice answers and now see the light and get
them right, they are moving along the road to attaining proficiency or better.
Looking back
at those GED subjects (25 questions per subject, it was very common to see
students get 13, 14, or 15 answers right. Immediately correcting some or all
the answers in a few hours is just what is needed. The alternative is to put the
test paper away, marked of course. And proceed by using other materials
including books, but those materials are not fresh in the minds of the test
takers. Using that test first is what is needed first. Some or more of those
answers will be on questions that were easy to answer, and others will be
harder to answer in all subjects.
Example:
John, Mary and Joe walked to school together.
Incorrect
because a comma is needed before and.
When the
first Common Core test came out in New York State and papers were marked, a
deputy commissioner of education told me in a meeting in Albany that 75 percent
of that test was basic material and 25 percent was Common Core material. The
students, it was known by the education department, failed because they did not
know the basics. Educators were not informed of this. The same may be true in
your state.
I like swimming,
snorkeling, and to go hunting.
Incorrect
because parallel structure demands consistency meaning hunting and not to go
hunting.
Most
students can learn these things quickly and do much better on tests.
This is that
I shared at the end of 2022.
Ohio 2013
annual GED statistics showed 1.1 percent delivery to its people during a year
when the test was going to get harder in 2014 which is very bad. 40th
in the nation.
African
Americans had a gap of 24.4 percent with White people and the gap for Hispanics
was 9.8 with Whites.
I only see
information about the G.E.D. in Ohio right now on the internet. The G.E.D. was
created as a test of college readiness- pass it and be college ready. That idea
was created by corporate Pearson Vue which deceived the general public before
2014. College readiness has always been a part of the G.E.D. as I will
illustrate. In New York City teachers were informed by community colleges that
the students did okay in college when the students were required to pass a
series of practice tests (or one test) with a cumulative score of 245 or more. This
was largely fallacious as my own observations in 1999 taught me. Obviously, a
student who got 245 or more immediately on that practice test was included in
the report. Others in my experience who obtained 245 could get only a 229 on
the real test when the passing score on the test was 225. There was hardly any
difference in knowledge and students were held back sometimes for an entire
year so satisfy that 245 score set by the administration.
Colleges
accepted students with college ready scores at that time. One college at 249.
Among the four-year city colleges, the passing score varied from 300-350 points
to be admitted. And there was your readiness even back then.
After
writing everything you have seen and will see in the paper, I remembered how I
learned much more than just about everyone in the United States and as I
started a national and international campaign to help people, It was 2002 which
was a very bad year for G.E.D. testing in the United States. I can illustrate
by using just a few states (or more). The national average was 1.0 which means
that one out of every hundred people who needed a diploma as a result of
dropping out of school somewhere earned it. Delaware was well below the national average
with 0.3 percent delivery to the people and a 96.2 passing percentage (District
of Columbia 0.5 delivery to the people and a 51.5 passing percentage). At the
top of our nation was Alaska with 3.6 percent (83.7 passing percentage). And
New York had a delivery of 1.1 percent (53.7 percent passing rate. Things
generally improved after that until 2013 and then no more statistics were
provided. Question Why did these jurisdictions achieve what they did or do so
well or do so poorly?
Ohio in 2002
had a 1.0 delivery of diplomas to its people (82.1 percent passing rate).
Alaska had
to be sending those candidates in large numbers who were minimally qualified on
the practice test or they were mobilizing communities well.
Delaware was
sending only the highest qualified students based on practice tests and holding
back other students.
New York was
sending students in both categories, schools raised the bar on the practice
test and candidates who did not attend the classroom could take the test
without those restrictions. What benefited New York State was that the test was
given at no cost (free to the test taker) and low- income people could take the
test unhindered.
Some states
had success rates of around 3.0 and 2.0 (5) and many states had success rates
between 1.0 and 2.0, and 14 states were below 1.0 in delivery.
Puerto Rico
went from a 1.8 percent delivery to its residents in 2002 (passing rate of 76.9
percent) to one of the major disaster jurisdictions after that. It got so bad
that Puerto Rico’s Department of Education decided not to send in the numbers
each year.
From 2003
on, better preparation boosted those numbers.
I challenged
the administration of the Board of Education of the City of New York (now the
Department of Education of NYC) before 2000 by alerting the news media and more
than a few articles in English and Spanish newspapers were written about
deficiencies. I was transferred into a program that was citywide where all
students had to pass the practice test with a cumulative passing score of 225
and my anecdotal record back then was the program was holding students back. In
that last site just before my retirement in the Fall of 2000, I made it clear
to students who had taken the G.E.D. in other programs that they had the right
to take the test on their own without the issuance of a code by the school
administration, that if they were 19 years of age it was their right to take
the test unhindered by the administration, that if they pass the test and go to
college and if they take and fail the college placement exam that they could
and should wait until the summer and take the remediation course free of charge
so they school finances would not be depleted, In calls to students made after
my retirement, students told me that they had left the program and taken and
passed the test on their own and that my instructions about the college
placement program were adhered to by those students that I had taught up to
2000. The administration even held students back who achieved what scores it
wanted because student attendance was poor. That administration was that rigid!
Things
cannot have improved in Ohio over the last 8 years, and we must know just how
things were playing out during COVID-19.
The Akron
School District must know how many diplomas have been produced each year
through the school codes assigned and written on the applications and the state
education department should inform Akron of just how many diplomas have been
earned in the city.
Students
whose intention is to just find a job or go into the military are surely being
held back by that raising of the bar called college readiness.
The great
thing that I learned from the CEO/President of The G.E.D. Testing Service was
this. Anyone who got a very high mark on the real test could earn 10 college
credits through The College Board. That is surely an incentive for the very
well-prepared student to take the G.E.D. But another test is needed.
With such
poor numbers, the education of adults has been suffering for a decade or more
and that means we are talking about parents. More parents need help so they can
fight poverty by getting better jobs through education where that is possible.
Parent
involvement. Should the school system strive to increase Title 1 Parent
Involvement? I would hope so. How can that be done? Using technology to reach
parents which I read years ago about the state of Ohio. Without my being there
physically, I hope that is what the Akron School District is doing.
And the
parents must know their rights when their children are not doing well in
school, falling behind, and not realizing that taking the G.E.D. is their
decision for their children. In my experience as a teacher and a retired
teacher, I have helped parents whose children either dropped out of the best
high schools in New York. One student was already 21 years of age when her
mother approached me at a dropout prevention conference where the wife of the governor
was the keynote speaker. Her daughter soon took and passed the G.E.D.,
obtaining the highest grade that I had ever heard of (almost perfect). Why
didn’t her daughter take the test three years earlier? Poor parent
communication!
The
combination of the school district helping more parents toward obtaining their
diploma and participation in the education of their children should be of great
value to Akron.
The G.E.D.
program. How is it conducted from the first day? The official G.E.D. practice
test is the way to go. Then in a few hours build up the skills based on what
the students could not get right on the test.
G.E.D.
teachers can tell Akron School District where the students have been deficient
since they have practice test results. That information should be shared with
schools to open the eyes of the schools before students drop out.
Right here
is what students need in either G.E.D. or state tests so they can catch up
fast. I had a G.E.D. Practice Test program from 2003 to 2014. Each subject had
25 questions which were all multiple-choice questions. And students had to know
critical thinking skills back then. The students who got lots of questions
wrong could learn from the program what they had to know from the start of the
test. Learning everything does not mean that the student is suddenly equal to a
person who can get everything right from the beginning. It does move the needle
for the student to become more proficient. And that is badly needed among high
percentages of students who do not perform well on state tests.
In
preparation for state tests in all subjects, do teachers know what the
individual deficiencies are for their students? What is each student lacking
before state testing? And if they know, where is the information for them to
review? I had my students’ weaknesses right in front of me toward the end of my
career and even those students who had been absent for days, or weeks, or more
from class could come to class and work on something that they had failed to
get right before.
Correlation
to the state test! Simple words and a simple program for each student to
follow. If the program is made available to the students (with parental
involvement). Mastery of skills in each subject area and filling the gaps of
each student so that greater success is possible. Helping students quicker, building
much better rapport, and leading to much better student behavior. Parents need
that correlation the way that a doctor’s patient must follow pre-surgery and
post-surgery instructions that prepare the person and make him or her better.
That correlation will be helpful, especially if the person has a tutor after
class instruction.
Upon
retiring, I visited Eastern Suffolk BOCES and my meeting was an eye opener for
the director. I presented to her the Official Correlation to the GED Practice
Test which she called a
“piece of cake” while telling me that the teachers developed their own
correlation to the Steck-Vaughn Complete GED book. It was in the district
office of the GED program that I worked in that one day I noticed a box full of
correlations to the GED just sitting there that could have been handed out to
teachers who had come to the office. And when I was assigned to another program
in the last year of my service in New York City, I spoke with a staff member
about that “correlation” who didn’t even know what I was talking about. That
effective tool was not used enough, a tool that could have been useful to the
students in their homes while just being absent or even being truant. And keep
in mind that a correlation is an individualized program based on the needs of
the student.
Before
retiring, the students knew from my opening statement that I was there to help
them improve and gain access to the real test so they could pass, get a
diploma, and move on with their lives. And I told them to keep studying even
after getting the diploma. When I had the chance to speak in communities and to
write for newspapers, a key thing that I wrote was not to throw away that GED
book and to keep it next to the Bible (God). I had noticed that one letter
being different and loved telling people that.
In 2004 I
gave The Central Islip Library in Suffolk County its GED Practice Test program
in English, Spanish, and French to help the community. The event which was held
there was covered locally in Suffolk Life and in the national newspaper of El
Salvador, La Prensa Gráfica. The vice minister of El Salvador attended that
event and “El Quijote del GED” was born in La Tribuna Hispana, the Spanish
language newspaper, in Nassau County. Eighteen years later, there still is a
Quixote fighting for the people here, around the United States, and in other
nations.
And when
300,000 students had already dropped out of school in the United States and it
seemed that they would not be protected under DACA, I contacted the Obama led
U.S. Department of Education about that so people could be protected and progress
well in our nation. And the immigrants moving into New York City, Washington,
D.C., Boston, and Chicago need much better help which will be part of this
overall conference. I also think that Mayor Adams should sue Texas and the
other states to secure the funding that is needed caused by leadership that
thinks that sanctuaries should only be in certain places across the United
States when people seeking amnesty should not be deceived and treated the way
they have been. We know that the fight is taking place because of the DeSantis
provoked flights to Massachusetts of immigrants, but more must be accomplished
and fast.
Remediation
in which the parents can check their phones or internet device and tune in to
lessons that are needed to build up their children. This could be an additional
school FACEBOOK where social events and announcements will not be placed as
remediation reaches communities quickly and efficiently.
Education
matters! All school board members and districts must learn much more about this
important subject because it is still impacting adversely on communities across
our nation even though the high school graduation rate has improved over the
years. Silence is complicit!
Any follow
up to me is simple. Just email martin@mygedhotline.com and I will provide my telephone
number where I can be reached almost all day.
I have talked
to and written to The U.S. Conference of Mayors in the last 24 hours. And so
far I like the response, but….I have been in touch with Newport News about
another matter which is the shooting of a teacher by a six years old student
(first grade student). Do you realize that if the student straightens out his
life and achieves great things that he could even grow up to be president? Wake
up! This report is an educational conference by itself, but I can assure you
that there is much more to talk about. I am ready, willing, and able to move
forward to move our nation forward. Before finalizing this report and adding content
within it, I learned that Mayor Adams will be attending the U.S. Mayor’s Conference
which was published in an article about his trip to Texas to learn more from
people at the border, people that I have either been in touch with and or who I
have written to. I noticed the divisions again in the city of New York that I
have seen commented on by others. I am still waiting to hear back from the
mayor’s office about these things that I have put before you and for other
things that will be part of a conference to help New York City and our nation.
There has been enough failure over the years caused by people in power and community
organizations.
We needed
better than Bloomberg and DeBlasio in New York City and this applies to others
around our nation who have not helped the people to progress. How long will
this kind of paper trail continue to exist after the education conference takes
place? How long? Nobody listens to me! Just imagine, for a moment, that single
word “truancy” and crime in our nation. And there are millions of adults who
have never finished high school and who suffer from poverty. I want to thank
Michael Bloomberg for his campaign to reduce poverty in New York when he took
office. I noticed the posters in the subways of New York City as I made my way
to meetings with communities and community organizations. And he knew that a
lot was going wrong, but the expertise was lacking among the people he relied
upon. I was writing about him in those days, even as he went out to Oklahoma
seeking the Republican nomination for president. It was much more than truancy,
because lots of mistakes were made by school systems and by others in power
(governmental and non-governmental).
Martin
Danenberg “El Quijote del GED” has done educational conferences and panel
discussions in the office of ASPIRA New York, the Bronx Supreme Court’s
Rotunda, the Consulate of El Salvador, the Congress of the United States, the
A.F.L.-C.I.O. Samuel Gompers Conference Room in Washington, D.C., and Somos El
Futuro Conference of the New York State Assembly.