Commonwealth ChalleNGe helps at risk kids get GED
By Amy Condra
ACondra@mechlocal.com
Mar 18, 2008

During his junior year at Atlee High School, Robert Taylor found that he couldn’t stay focused on his schoolwork.
“I was doing things I shouldn’t be doing, getting suspended, getting in trouble in class, talking back to the teacher…” he said.
Soon he stopped attending school altogether.
Taylor is not alone; in fact, dropping out of high school has become all too common.
According to the American Youth Policy Forum, our nation’s young people are leaving school at a disturbing rate: every nine seconds, a student becomes a high school dropout.
When they leave school, they are often leaving behind a chance for a successful and contented life. High school dropouts often face a bleak financial future in a society where a high school diploma is often vital to maintaining a livable wage.
And, says a report by the National Education Association, they are increasing their odds of winding up in state and federal prisons, where the majority of inmates failed to complete their high school education.
Taylor’s family steered him toward a program that would get him back into a learning environment.
“My sister actually told me about it,” he said, describing Commonwealth ChalleNGe, a free 17½ month co-education program for teens, aged 16 to 18, who are at risk for dropping out of high school. Accepted participants must be drug- and felony-free.
Commonwealth ChalleNGe has a GED success rate of about 65 percent, and after graduation, 60 percent of cadets enter the workforce, 20 percent join the military and 20 percent continued the education.
Taylor decided that he wanted to follow in those footsteps.
“My mom handed me a stack of paper one day when I wasn’t going to school,” referring to the program’s brochures. “There were pictures of an obstacle course, and it looked like I might like it. That night I went online and filled out the application.”
He began the program on Jan. 19 of this year, and is one of 124 youths currently enrolled.
The first part of the program includes a 22-week residential stay at a quasi-military session held at Camp Pendleton. This is followed by a 12-month post-residential phase, when cadets receive mentoring and support.
Retired USMC Colonel Thomas Early, who has served as the director of Commonwealth ChalleNGe for three years, relishes his role in helping these kids learn the eight primary components of the program: academics, life-coping skills, work skills, citizenship, leadership/followership, health education, physical fitness and community service.
The program is funded by federal and state resources, and services about 300 young people per year.
Early says that the motto of Commonwealth ChalleNGe is “We support second chances.”
“I don’t believe they pay me for this,” he said. “When I see a bunch of boys and girls come in, they’re a pretty ragtag bunch at that point, confused and scared. By the end, they are standing straight as a willow, and have a lot of self-confidence and pride.”
Taylor agreed that the program has changed him. “I haven’t gotten into a single fight, I seem calmer about situations that used to end in a fistfight. I think it’s the strict rules of the program… it’s working out good for me.”
And although he is excited by the possibilities that Commonwealth ChalleNGe have presented to him, he said, “Honestly I don’t want to leave.”
But he already has plans for life after Pendleton. He says that he has been studying for his GED, taking pre-tests to get ready for the real thing.
“I want to be a mechanic,” he said, describing the goal he is working toward. “I want to go to J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College and enroll in an automotive program.”
Early says that he loves these stories, and fears for kids that don’t find their way to a program like Commonwealth ChalleNGe. “They could end in jail, a penitentiary—and worse; if they’re playing with gangs, drugs or alcohol, they could end in the cemetery.”