The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score
On January 20, 2016, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried a story about the possibility that the GED Testing Service would retroactively lower the cut score for passage of its revised GED. That same day, EdWeek picked up the story, and on January 26, 2016, GED Testing Service confirmed that the GED cut score would indeed be retroactively lowered from 150 to 145 but that states would be left to decide to follow such advice:
GED Testing Service …recommends that states apply retroactively the 145 passing score to test-takers who have tested since January 1, 2014. When a state approves applying the passing score retroactively, students who earned scores between 145-149 on the new GED test launched in January of 2014 would be eligible for their state’s high school equivalency credential.“The scoring enhancements are based on an extensive analysis of test-takers’ performance data from the past 18 months, conversations with state policymakers and elected officials, and external validation with experts,” said GED Testing Service President Randy Trask. “This is part of our ongoing commitment to make data-based decisions, and continually improve the efficacy of the GED program.”
Even as GED Testing Service promotes this change as positive because it is based on research showing that GED students were faring better than traditional high school grads on that all-too-oft-heard “college readiness,” what it also reveals is the power of cut scores to drive individuals’ lives.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that if Georgia follows the GED Testing Service recommendation for states to retroactively issue GEDs based on the lowered passing score of 145, then approximately 1,900 Georgians will be awarded GEDs after being told they failed– and likely adjusting their lives to that failure.
High-stakes cut scores profoundly affect peoples’ lives.
While my view of the value of standardized testing in general has waned sharply over The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score | deutsch29: