High School graduation rates appear to be on the rise across the country, but for one segment of the population, they’ve dropped dramatically. The pass rate for prison inmates taking the G-E-D plummeted after a new computer based test was introduced in 2014.
G-E-D stands for General Education Diploma. It’s a test people can take if they failed to get their high school degrees. Corrections facilities are facing new challenges in making the tests available to inmates, even as experts stress, there’s nothing better than that degree to keep people from returning to jail.
“One of the reasons why I said whatever it takes to continue it, continue it because we had 40, 50 year old men crying breaking down in tears saying I never accomplished anything in my life until this or this is the biggest thing I’ve ever done," says Captain Kimberly Haug at the Montgomery County Jail in Christiansburg.
“We had to re-evaluate and rethink it, what we were doing when we had to decide whether we were going to buy all the computers, if we were going to go forward with it. We knew we wanted to."
This small, short-term jail is home to about a 80 inmates. The money they spend in the jail commissary goes to cover the GED test fee; $30 dollars each time you take it, and most take it more than once.
“Keeping up with the software is probably the hardest thing," says Greg Warden, Program Director at the jail.
He’s also big behind the push to keep the tests coming. In fact most corrections facilities are, because it’s not longer a question of whether its effective and one of the positives in the prison system.
“As far as them coming in, these guys come in, right off the bat, they’re sharp, they want this so bad.”
Now the question is, how can corrections keep the new, more difficult test coming. Many inmates lack of computer skills is yet another obstacle to passing the 4 subject 5 hour test.
“When this test first started we were like zero for 15 as far as people passing this test," says Brandon Snider. He's in his early 20s, and says he didn’t focus enough on school when he was young, got in with the wrong crowd, but now he’s in with the right one in here.
“Just to be able to show them that the program is working, to be able to show the captain and Lieutenant here that there efforts are coming through."
Snider is among 5 out of 15 inmates who passed the GED test this spring. Frank Fassl is another.
“When I started doing this I got a cap and gown which I thought I’d never have. And I got a tassel, which I thought I’d never have and I’ve got options now to go to college.”
Fassl dropped out of school in the 10th grade. He’s been in and out of jail since.
“Where before I felt because I was a felon I was never going to have a career or a job or anything for that matter, but now that I got the diploma, I’ve done the research on what jobs I can have. This has changed my life."
Linda Jilk teaches the GED class at Montgomery County Jail with help from two community volunteers. She’s with New River Community College’s Office of Transitional Programs, which supports her work with the inmates. “I just have the utmost confidence in these guys, I’ve seen how hard they work. I’ve seen how capable they are and I’ve seen what motivation can do and I feel like it’s not going to be easy, but that they can overcome that obstacle.
But nationwide funding is down for correctional education, according to a study by the Rand corporation, that’s despite the fact that every dollar spent on it saves about $5 in re-incarceration costs. Experts are concerned about what the future holds for the GED in jail programs after recent changes which have increased the costs and raised the bar to pass it. They worry not enough new teachers are being trained. The Corrections Education Associationhopes to attract more current and potential new teachers to its national conference in set for July in Arlington, Virginia.
