GED program giving inmates a second chance at education

When he was 17 years old, David Ratliff dropped out of high school for what he admits amounted to being young and stupid.
Ratliff, now 28, has struggled to find good jobs since then without having either a high school diploma, or a GED.
“It has been rough. You can’t hold a good job nowhere without a GED that is the first thing most places are going to look at nowadays,” Ratliff said. “Other than that, you can be a laborer for $6 or $7 an hour. You can carry concrete and mortar for $6 or $7 an hour. It will make it rough on you.
“You can be a laborer, or a flunky, or whatever you want to do. You can cut tobacco, but that ain’t any money. That is working for pennies. If you can get your GED get it. In the long run it will help you,” Ratliff said.
A lack of money is one of the sources of Ratliff’s most recent problems. He is currently an inmate at the Whitley County Jail serving time for non-payment of fines.
Thursday afternoon was his first day in a class to help him study for the GED, and what he hopes will lead to a better job and a better life.
“If I had stayed in school, I believe I would have stayed out of trouble,” Ratliff said adding that his advice to students contemplating dropping out of high school is, “stay in school. Get your degree, because once you start running around and quit school, it just leads to trouble.”
Elmer Patrick, an instructor for the GED program at the jail, said the program, which was started about two months ago, is conducted by the Whitley County Board of Education in cooperation with Whitley County Jailer Jerry Taylor.
“It was a result of looking for students to teach the GED too,” Patrick said. “It just seemed natural that these people would need their GED, and there are a lot of students in here.”
When the topic of offering GED classes was first proposed at the jail, Patrick said the inmates were very excited.
Initially, about 20 students signed up for the program. There are currently about 34 who have either gotten their degree or are working toward it.
Thursday was Kenneth Couch’s first day in class at the Whitley County Jail to start studying for his GED. If he had started a little sooner, he might not even be in jail right now.
Last Tuesday, Judge Dan Ballou ordered Couch, 22, to serve 12 months in jail because Couch hadn’t completed his GED, which was part of a plea bargain he made on a marijuana possession charge.
Couch said he didn’t take his GED on the outside for a variety of reasons.
“I didn’t have any way around and family problems. I should have listened to the judge from the get go, and I wouldn’t be sitting here,” Couch said. “He was a nice dude. He gave me chances after chances that’s his job.”
Couch dropped out of school at the age of 15 years old. He got into fights, and other trouble.
“If I hadn’t dropped out of school, I wouldn’t be here,” Couch said.
Couch admits that at least one advantage to being in jail is that he will at least have more time to study.
“I don’t have anything better to do. I’m going to study, get my GED, get out, and get a real job,” Couch said.
When he gets out, Couch is hoping to go live with his aunt, which he thinks will help him stay out of trouble.

Why they dropped out?
For the inmates at the Whitley County Jail numerous things lead them to want to get their GED completed, and to leave school in the first place.
“A drug problem put me where I’m at,” said John Dutkiewicz, 32, who entered his first drug rehabilitation center when he was 15 years old. “I just took a wrong turn.”
Dutkiewicz, who is waiting trial on a felony charge, said it has been so long ago, he doesn’t even remember how he got started doing drugs.
Dutkiewicz said that prior to dropping out of school at age 15, he was a pretty good student, but a troubled kid. He didn’t have too many problems with his GED test last week.
Dutkiewicz said he is now hoping to take some college classes, which he hopes will lead to a better job where he can take care of his children once he gets out of jail.
“I have always been pretty good with my hands, but it can’t hurt to get smarter,” he added.
Clayton Long, 42, who is a welder by trade, is in jail due to a delinquent child support charge.
Long dropped out of high school his junior year, and joined the service.
He took the GED test about two weeks ago, said dropping out of school is something he always regretted.
Long said the classes can help him with his job because he deals with a lot of math.
“My boss will probably be proud of me that I went ahead and did this while I am in here,” Long said.
Long said staying in school is something he is encouraging his kids to do.
“Math is probably one of the biggest things because you use math probably all your life. If you get behind in it, you probably can’t go to much farther,” Long said.

Making the best of it
Tom Stewart, 27, is in jail awaiting trial on a manufacturing methamphetamines charge, which he said amounts to him being in “the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I quit school when I was 16. I got into a lot of problems, and I figured while I was in here, I might as well make the best of my time. I just want to get my GED so I can get on with my future,” Stewart said.
Stewart said quitting school was probably the biggest mistake he ever made.
“Everybody told me I had to have a high school diploma to get a job,” Stewart said. “When I quit school, I had a job making $18.45 an hour. I just didn’t see that was right, but I wasn’t looking far enough into the future. The job kind of ended, and I was stuck on my own. I meant to go back to school, but didn’t get a chance to.”
Now that he has passed his GED, Stewart said he would like to take some college courses if he can, and volunteer to help some of his fellow inmates.
“There are just as much like me as I am. They have messed up, and they want to get better. If I can do something to help somebody out, then I normally do.”

Jail environment can help
Patrick said he doesn’t get nervous working in the jail setting.
“I’m safer here than I am downtown on the streets,” he joked. “These guys know you’re trying to help them, and they respect that. They appreciate it.”
Prior to being a GED instructor in Whitley County, Patrick said he worked about two years with a Florida GED program in the Orange County prison system.
For about four hours each, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons, Patrick goes to the jail to work with the students, and help them study for the test.
“We tested them to find out where they are. We honed in on the areas where they don’t do well. We cover everything from math to science, social studies, reading, writing all of it,” Patrick said.
Suffice it to say, a prison or jail environment offers some distinct advantages and disadvantages for students.
The biggest advantage some students have is more time to study for the exam opposed to people that may be working 40 to 50 hours a week on the outside.
“Some of them are extremely intelligent. It surprised me. They might not know anything about long division one day. When you come back the next day, they have studied it that night in the cell, and all of the sudden, they can do the whole nine yards. Then they can go into algebra and geometry,” Patrick said.
“It would really surprise you how intelligent some of these people are. As a group they are very intelligent. If you picked the same number of people up off the street, who hadn’t graduated from high school, you wouldn’t get as near an intelligent group as you have with the people in this jail.”
In other cases, some of Patrick’s students have no place to go but up.
“Besides that, a lot of them hit rock bottom here, and they decide they want to make something out of their life, and something out of their future. When they do that, they do real well,” Patrick said.
Jail offers disadvantages as well for instructors and students.
Class doesn’t always start on time.
“You are not in an ordinary situation. You are in a prison situation where you just can’t come and go as you please. Certain doors are locked, and certain doors lock behind you. Certain doors lock in front of you. You can’t move freely,” Patrick said.
The students aren’t always available for the class. Sometimes they are in court. Sometimes they have to see their lawyer. Some get out on bond, or are released from custody.
When he thought they were ready, Patrick gave the students a pre-GED test to see if they were ready for the real thing, and about two weeks ago, the first group of students actually took their GED test for real.
During the first pre-test, 16 of the 20 students who took the pre-test qualified to take the real thing. Of the 14 students to actually take the test, Patrick said he is sure all of them passed it.
“They didn’t all take the GED. You’re in a prison situation. Whenever they say you can go. they don’t say, ‘I’m going to stick around, and wait until I get my GED test.’ They are out of here even though they are ready to take it and everything,” Patrick said.
In a few cases though, Patrick said he has had students come back to take the test.
“We have the jail certified to give the GED. We don’t give the GED. The state gives it, but you have to have a room, and a center certified to give it. There are two places here now that are certified to give it,” Patrick said. “It is really rewarding for the ones who finish it. They will be getting their GED.
“They came a long way. Some of them came from the third grade level. Of course they had a lot of time to work on it.”

Students moving up
Now that some of the students have passed their GED, Patrick said the school system is working to get some college courses offered as well. Patrick said he has a friend in McCreary County that is helping set up classes through the community college system.
“Some of them have a long time in here, and they can get some college work done while they are here, a course or two,” Patrick said. “We are going to try and put in some computers, and we are getting it on line now so we can put in some college computer classes. Some of them will do real well in college.”
One of those inmates hoping to go to college is Eric Roberts, 25, who is in jail on drug charges. He has been going to the class for about a month.
Roberts is unlike many inmates since he has already completed high school. He even went to college for two semesters. Currently he is working in the program to see where he might be placed if he takes college classes.
“I am just coming down here to try and keep my brain active,” Roberts said.
Roberts said if he is able to complete college, he would like to get into the medical field when he is released.
Prior to going to jail, Roberts had been working as a dishwasher, and had been doing restaurant work for the last four years. Going back to school isn’t something he spent much time thinking about until he came to jail about five months ago.
“I was putting it off. I didn’t have any plans of going, and this kind of got me back interested in it,” Roberts said.
Some of the graduates from the first round of GED testing are coming back to class to work as instructors, and help the other students.
“If you have four or five guys in there that can’t read, it is difficult to work five people on different levels. Maybe I will assign one to each one of the students to help them to write,” Patrick said. “The students I have right now have really respected the school, and they have respected me, and they have worked hard.”