Posted on 03/08/2011 5:46:08 PM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner
Justin Merrill had wanted to join the military for as long as he could remember.
"Everyone on my mom's side of the family was a Marine, and everyone on my dad's side was in the Army," explained Merrill, 18, of Danville, Montour County, in central Pennsylvania. "I wanted to do something to help my country."
But Merrill's plan was jeopardized last year, when he learned that the Army did not approve of the high school diploma he was on track to earn from Agora Cyber Charter School.
"When I told my recruiter, the first words out of his mouth were, 'I'm not sure you can join the military because you're not going to a brick-and-mortar school,'" Merrill recalled.
As enrollment in Pennsylvania's 11 cyber charter schools swelled to about 25,000 students statewide last year, Merrill and others who hope to enlist in the military after graduation are finding their plans derailed by an obscure Department of Defense policy.
(Excerpt) Read more at yorkdispatch.com ...
Wait - we had to let in homosexuals because we were supposedly so hard-up for recruits and they’re knocking back people who are qualified, not security risks, not toxic to unit cohesion because they don’t like where the credentials are from? Military standardized testing should have been enough to check their qualifications, if there was doubt.
What about an affirmitive action Law Degree from harvard?
I figured that..."LOL"
I'M A DOCTOR! WhooHooo!
I agree with your comments on the lack of “social skills” nonsense. However, what I liked best was your paratrooper. How did you do that? My son is a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, and I would love to use that sometime.
I did the same thing, except I left home at 16 joined the Navy at 17 and then got my GED.(in 1971 you could join without a GED). How things have changed.
WOuld someone with the social skills developed in a government school classroom be of any use anywhere other than a mosh-pit?
I would much rather have a student with a deeper command of the subject matter than someone who spent significant time horsing around in “lab”. Real lab skills can be easily and quickly acquired. The ability to use math and principles of physics to reason your way through a physics problem, fo rexample,can’t.
“Why does everybody want to social engineer the military? Dont you think Lieberman and Gates have done enough damage to our national security with the repeal of DADT. I can see from your tag that you have a pet peeve with traditional education. You dont have to endanger the country just to validate your position.”
Well, lets see.
I don’t want to social engineer the military. In fact, what they are doing is weakening it with open gays. I am totally against that.
But have you considered that the schools are not much different to what they are trying to do to the military?
In fact, the whole “social skills” to the educrats that certify teachers use that term to mean “become a socialist” NOT how to get long with others. In fact, schools in the way they get there money, to how they work, is pure socialism.
This is why it is a pet peeve of mine. I have read books that tell the history of public schools and there purposes. The main one is to instill obedience and compliance to employers or their officers, and to not learn critical thinking skills.
I am against that as well. I wanted my daughter to learn to think, to understand this nations history without my having to unlearn her each day. (In her case, that would not have worked. Some kids are very open to the first thing they hear on a topic, my daughter is one of them, when she was young)
So, I am not endangering this country by homeschooling. And I don’t need this to validate my position. I get all the validation one could hope for with the comments about her maturity, from family and her ballet studio.
This thread and and my original personal opinion is not about home schooling. I don’t have any problem whatsoever with home schooling.
Wait till May.
The U.S. Army has been busy for several years putting the Armor Officer Advance Course among others on line. To hear the bubble head dreamers tell it, on line “distance learning” is the best thing since sliced bread or at least since contractor kick backs were invented.
I don’t disagree about that.
I was only trying to respond to your post to me.
But I will say “social skills” is a hot button for alot of homeschoolers. It has been used against us for more than twenty years.
ping
wouldn’t that count against home schoolers as well
Not necessarily-My grandson had no problem enlisting as a home school graduate. The recruiter did talk to his mother- who had kept records of the class requirements he and his brother had done-
He is on his second tour now, Iraq the first time and Afghanistan currently.
I scored a 98 when I took my Air Force exam in 1980. My recruiter said there wasn’t a higher score than that, and I could do anything I wanted to be, but I’ve always wondered...
Even worse; an affirmative action token president!
I answered every question correctly.. ( Didn’t say the number score)
I ended up as a manufacturing engineer machining advanced jet engine compondents at P&W.
components ( sorry fat finger wednesday)
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