Baltimore program leverages Novel to graduate 68 GED students

Educational Options’ Novel program is a key ingredient for student success for participants in a partnership between Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) and Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS). The program, hosted at BCCC, caters to students who need an alternative means for completing high school or obtaining their GED. The program has created a successful model that combines small class sizes, individualized instruction, and web-based learning that is powered by the Novel curriculum. This June, the program graduated 68 GED students. Read the full Baltimore Times article to learn more:  

Novel/GED Program at BCCC gets Betty Whaley and 67 others back in the game
by Bill Fleming
Originally posted 7/12/2007, re-posted with permission from the Baltimore Times

Exemplifying the community benefit of its revitalized partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System-a commitment which has leveraged small class size, online learning and more personalized teaching to spur academically challenged students to experience success, Baltimore City Community College held a graduation ceremony on Saturday, June 23, 2007 for 68 newly minted Maryland GEDs, or Baltimore Success Stories.

Not long ago, education was the bane of these graduates' existence. As of June 23rd, it had become their boon.

Lining the stage before Maryland State Delegate Catherine Pugh, who gave the commencement address, BCCC's 7th and first female president, Dr. Carolane Williams and key college staff, the graduates came to receive heretofore unlikely high school accolades, at a morning ceremony which lasted two hours. Music was provided by Lenora Davis, soloist, and St. Veronica's Youth Steel Orchestra.

Among the graduates was Honor Student Robert Cook, Jr., who scored 3,040 points on his state GED exam. For Gordon Streeter, the day was especially poignant: It was his 57th birthday.

Most came to the ceremony with a story not unlike Betty Whaley, 43, a former teenage mother who dropped out of Frederick Douglass High School at 18. For the next 25 years, Betty would manage-through a desire she had always felt, to help people-to work as a nursing assistant for Stella Morris Nursing Home, Mercy Hospital and various nursing agencies in addition to assisting children as a nursing support technician at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. For this grandmother of two, earning a GED after all these years was about taking a step up.

“I was always able to get a fair amount of work,” she says. “The health care field offered training program after training program, so improving my skill was not that difficult. But I always had to worry about not having a high school diploma.”

This lack of a credential both wore on her existence and became a barrier to future work. “There were quite a few of us, actually,” she says. “We sort of existed 'under the radar.' 'Would they audit our educational credentials?'” I thought. I worked night shifts in the oncology ward where I could keep to myself and mind my own business. But 'keeping it all together' became difficult. The 12-hour days were excruciating.”

Over time, Betty would experience the disadvantages lack of education confers. “It felt like a real defeat,” she says, “when nurses old enough to be my daughter routinely gave me orders. I thought my life's potential had run out.” She decided to get her diploma. If anything, this would be the first step toward fulfilling her much more ambitious goal of becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse specializing in medical records and billing.

She contacted Frederick Douglass High School, which connected her to the BCCC Novel (New Options-Visions for Extended Learning) Program, a Web-based high school curriculum and credit recovery program with small-class and one-on-one assistance shaped to each student's needs.

“The program was simply excellent!” Betty says. “With a computer, you can always go back and review concepts. All my courses were online, but the instructors were fantastic. They'll sit down with you and get you thinking. They train you to learn.”

Her experience was in every sense a testament to the value of education. “Something was added to me, having gotten it,” she says, about her high school diploma, obtained with 67 others at home in Baltimore City where, in the spirit of Horace Mann, education became the great equalizer.

BCCC is the largest deliverer of adult literacy services in the city and the only community college in the country licensed by the Novel curriculum's vendor, Educational Options, Inc. of Arlington, Va., to deliver the coursework under a high school diploma partnership with an urban school system. In terms of enrollment and results, GED programs at BCCC-including Novel-are making a huge difference for people previously challenged by traditional school settings.