Scoring The American Soldiers

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Army misses education mark, fewer than 83% have graduated high school
For the third year in a row, the Army fell significantly short of its goal for recruiting high school graduates. It was the latest sign that the military's largest branch is lowering education standards to meet quotas, possibly at the expense of the long-term health of the force.


In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, fewer than 83 percent of new active-duty soldiers were high school graduate More..s, according to Army statistics provided to the Globe.


The share was slightly higher than last year - leading some officials to say they have stemmed the drop - but still far below the Army's stated goal of having more than 90 percent earn their diplomas before joining the ranks.


In another worrisome trend, the percentage of active-duty recruits who scored in the bottom category on the Army's entrance exam remained among the highest of the decade, according to the figures compiled by the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox in Kentucky.


The eroding standards come as the Army attempts to increase its ranks by 74,200 soldiers by 2012, through a combination of stepped-up recruiting and persuading greater numbers of current soldiers to reenlist.


The expansion, to cover active-duty soldiers, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, marks the largest since the end of the Cold War. Many of the new recruits are likely to remain in uniform for a decade or more.


"Even if the recent negative trends in recruiting and retention were to be completely reversed over the next few years, it would likely be years, perhaps a decade or even longer, before the Army fully recovered from some of those trends," said Steven Kosiak, vice president of the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington and author of a new report on military manpower.


Over past few years, the Army has failed to meet several key goals on recruit quality. Education levels have dropped, entrance exam scores have slid, and more recruits have entered the service after receiving special waivers for problems that would otherwise have made them ineligible: medical reasons, past drug use, or criminal histories.


At the same time, many specialists believe the war in Iraq has driven away potential recruits and led parents, teachers, and others who influence youths to steer them to other professions. As a result, the Army has fallen considerably short of recruits that possess a high school education.


The military considers a high school diploma to be the strongest indicator of stick-to-itiveness. Numerous government and independent studies have shown that soldiers who finish high school are far more likely to complete their term of service without disciplinary problems.


Indeed, the Army considers a diploma so important that earlier this year it opened its own preparatory school at Fort Jackson in Mississippi, where soldiers can earn their high school equivalency before entering basic training.


"People who do not have a high school diploma leave the service in the first term at a considerably higher rate," said Bruce Orvis, director of the manpower and training program at the Rand Corporation, a government funded think tank. The Pentagon sets the education bar so high, he said, "to maximize return on investment.
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"Their long-term goal is to have 90 percent plus of their recruits to have high school degrees," Kosiak added. "They managed to achieve that level until 2006, when it fell to 81 percent, which was the lowest it had been in 25 years. In 2007 it got a little bit worse; it went down to 79 percent. That is one of the most significant areas that people have expressed concern about.
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Still, top Pentagon officials are confident that the worst of the Army's recruiting problems of recent years may be over.


"The Army has improved its high school diploma content," David Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel, told reporters at the Pentagon recently before the figures were made public.


"We're showing improvement in that area and we're doing the kinds of things we need to," added Major General Thomas Bostick, commander of the Army Recruiting Command. Bostick also pointed out that Army recruits have a high school graduation rate that is higher than the national average of about 75 percent. But in other areas of recruit quality, as measured against the service's own standards, the Army is also falling short.


The Army Reserve, the part-time force that augments the active duty force, nearly achieved the 90 percent high school graduation goal last year, but it failed to meet its goal in the number of volunteers who scored above average on the entrance exam, according to the new figures.


The Army wants at least 60 percent of its new recruits to score in the highest category on the entrance exam. Yet last year, a little more than 58 percent in Army Reserve did so, according to the recruiting statistics.


Meanwhile, the share of active-duty recruits who scored in the lowest acceptable category on the exam remained at nearly 4 percent, as it has for each of the last three years. That is far higher than the previous five years, according to the data.


In fiscal year 2008, more than 3.5 percent of the 80,000 new recruits scored between the 10th and 30th percentile on the exam, the lowest category acceptable for entering the service. That is slightly lower than in the last few years, but still higher than 1.2 percent average between 2000 and 2004.


Orvis, the Rand specialist, said the exam scores are another key measure of recruit quality, saying that soldiers with higher scores "train better and perform better.
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Complete data on how many waivers were granted last year has not yet been compiled, according to S. Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command. However, in at least one category, for felony convictions, the situation has improved. Last year, a total of 372 recruits had a felony conviction on their record, compared with 511 the previous fiscal year.


Bryan Bender can be reached at [e-mail]