Nearly 3.275 million Texas adults lack a high school diploma. After August 31, 2021, these Texans will lose the choice to select which HSE exam will give them the chance to break cycles of generational poverty and earn the certificate that will open the door to opportunity to employment and familial stability and bonds.

Whether you consider the billions of dollars in wages and taxes lost due to unemployment, the billions of dollars to be saved and decreased recidivism in our state prisons, or middle and high school dropouts that are outpacing HSE graduates almost 2:1, Texas cannot afford to return to an HSE exam monopolization and disenfranchise thousands of current and future learners.

• We call for Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit purveyor of the HiSET exam, to reconsider their "business decision" to leave the state. Losing the ability to test on paper, to eliminate barriers and receive accommodations, and to complete an exam not motivated by profit margins but by success will deprive those Texans in greatest need from achieving their dreams.
• We insist that Mike Morath and the Texas Education Agency reissue a procurement to which ETS HiSET will respond. It is inconceivable that, in the shadow of the devastating pandemic, the destinies of so many adult learners hinge on the inflexibilities of a date on a calendar.
• We demand that Keven Ellis and the State Board of Education eliminate every barrier to ensure that Texans can choose the path to their future. We urge you to listen to your colleagues, like Pat Hardy, who have tirelessly championed education and choice in our state.

As each of you considers these needs in Texas, remember why choice matters:

1. Choice builds ownership in learning.
2. Choice allows learners to display their skills in the way that best represents their knowledge.
3. Choice emboldens true differentiation.

Adult educators and community advocates know all too well what will happen to our neighbors, friends, family members, and colleagues if we become a single HSE exam state. As learners, still reeling from a pandemic-riddled economy and looking for assurance that they will not have to struggle as mightily as they did over the past 18 months, discover and lament that choice, and a chance out, have been stripped away, and that earning that equivalency certificate is now that much more challenging to achieve, they deserve to know from each of your organizations why? Please put aside political jockeying and return choice and hope to the millions of Texans in need.

Thank you for considering these recommendations.