Amanda sits with her pen between her teeth. Her brow is scrunched more tightly than the ponytail that contains her long black hair. The 20-year-old high school drop-out has been working at the
Urban Appalachian Council's East Price Hill GED Center for just a couple of months, but her patience is wearing thin.
She looks at a page from an English practice test. Compound words and contractions. She learned this stuff years ago. "Why do I have to keep doing the same things over and over again?" she asks, shaking her head. Then she looks at the next section of words that must be joined to form compounds that fit into a series of sentences about boats in a harbor. The first sentence stops her cold.
"What type of object would pull slowly into a harbor?" her tutor asks.
Amanda looks up from the page and scans the room filled with long tables and thick study guides. Some of her peers at the end of the table are swapping stories, and Amanda has found an easy distraction. "Hey, Amanda, let's just get this section done," her tutor says. The words "tug" and "boat" sit just a few centimeters above the blank in the sentence. "I bet you can guess. What would pull in a harbor?"
"I can't guess," Amanda finally says, taking a deep breath. "I don't know what that word, harbor, means."
Like many of her classmates on this damp March day, Amanda faces a series of hurdles beyond showing up for class each morning and barreling through page after page of study guides in an effort to earn her Graduation Equivalency Diploma. Cultural gaps, not in intelligence but in exposure, seep into the room like fog into a harbor, slow and stifling.
The national average age for people who take the GED is
24. In 2009, Ohio ranked 23rd among the 50 states for the number GED test-takers who passed all components, with 76 percent. Nationally, 69 percent of people taking the GED passed it. But the statistics can be deceptive. Some students in East Price Hill are making their third, fourth or even fifth trip back to GED books. While Cincinnati Public Schools has raised its overall graduation rate to just more than 80 percent, that is not the case at Amanda's neighborhood school, Oyler, where nearly nine of 10 students are economically disadvantaged and nearly one in three students has a disability. Oyler's current 50 percent graduation rate marks a steady improvement in many areas of study, but that doesn't change the fact that prospects for half of the school's students remain dim.
Oblivious to the statistics that might give her pause, Amanda chews her gum and dreams of day when she can have a regular job, nothing fancy, just a chance to bring home a paycheck and take care of herself.
Do Good:
• It's simple as A-B-C to volunteer to help GED students. Call the East Price Hill GED Center, 513-557-2546, to find out how you can help.
Fill out a volunteer application online.
•
Find out the latest. Join the UAC email list today.
•
Make a donation using Paypal. Support UAC's efforts without leaving the comfort of your laptop.
By Elissa Yancey
Photo courtesy Urban Appalachian Council
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