Tucson Weekly-Advocates fight to keep state funding for GED

First Chances
Advocates fight to keep state funding for GED and adult-education programs
by Mari Herreras

* Adult-education advocates want to remind state lawmakers in these tough times that folks pay more in income taxes when they have a high school diploma.

Donna McLaughlin says it would be wrong to describe her efforts to go back to school and get her GED in her mid-40s as a “second chance.”

“The last few weeks, I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Everyone deserves a second chance.’ The thing is, I’ve learned that for most of us, getting a GED isn’t a second chance. It’s a first chance,” McLaughlin says.

Raped at 14, McLaughlin says, she became pregnant, gave the baby up for adoption and tried to go back to school, but her stepmother kept her home. At 16, she was kicked out of the house.

“I ended up staying with people I baby-sat for, but my brother was 14, and he ended up homeless. When you are in a situation like that, school is not on your mind. You have to get a job and feed yourself. I struggled for a few years, because I wasn’t given the tools to survive that your parents usually give you. But I finally figured it out in my mid-20s,” she says.

McLaughlin started a cleaning business that continues to thrive, but she was embarrassed when people asked her where she went to high school.

“Even though I had been successful, I still had doubts within myself, and I felt embarrassed. I’d lie to them. I didn’t want people to know,” she says.

McLaughlin is relieved that she got her GED right before these bad economic times began. For full article click here

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