Your Guide To Florida’s New GED
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Florida has a new GED
Florida gets a new GED exam today. The high school equivalency test is going exclusively online.
Education advocates are greeting it with mixed feelings.
The new GED has been retooled to emphasize workplace and college skills. That’s part of why advocates say it makes sense to offer it only as a computer-based exam. Test-takers will also get their unofficial results instantly.
But some educators are concerned that degree-seekers who are not computer proficient will be left behind. And the new GED has a new price: $128 for the full exam. The old paper and pencil test was $70.
StateImpact Florida has been looking into the new exam. Here’s a collection of stories to get you up to speed:
Test-takers of the new GED will have to prepare a little differently now.
Teacher Travis McGinnis says he started telling students in September that a new exam was coming.
“There are quite a few changes,” McGinnis said. “The cost. How you take it; it’s going to be on a computer only now. So we have to make sure that everybody has basic computer skills. As far as the material is concerned, the base of it really is not changing.”
But McGinnis said rumors about the new test are scaring away students. Read more about the impact on test-takers here.
One of the biggest changes to the new GED is that it will only be offered online. John O’Connor spoke with GED Testing Services vice president Nicole Chestang about the decision to go digital.
The actual test questions are changing, too. Much like test questions associated with new Common Core exams, the revamped GED questions are designed to reflect critical thinking skills.
More than a dozen states have started offering or completely switched to different equivalency exams in response to the GED changes.
Florida is sticking with the GED for now, but here’s a look at the exams competing with the GED across the country.