Friday, January 25, 2008

Army Lowers Recruiting Standards Again

Fred Kaplan at Slate has been on top of this issue for a while. He writes:

"The latest statistics—compiled by the Defense Department. and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Boston-based National Priorities Project—are grim. They show that the percentage of new Army recruits with high-school diplomas has plunged from 94 percent in 2003 to 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent in 2007. (The Pentagon's longstanding goal is 90 percent.)"

This is by way of 1) weakening our national defense and 2) making a back-door draft so that poor and minority kids in both urban and rural areas who go to crappy schools with lower graduation rates (the American high school graduation rate has been declining for 40 years, says a new paper) are more likely to fight and die in wars.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

*SHOCK* People with better opportunities take advantage of them?! What's next? A link between education and income?

8:25 AM
Anya said...

The military doesn't have to be a worse opportunity than a typical low-wage job. The great US achievement of the last 20 years was the establishment of the world's best, all-volunteer, professional military that yes, offered opportunities to people of many backgrounds and races. Kaplan is writing about the dismantling of that institution.

9:42 AM

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