'Last Stop USA': How the Army Is Trying to Fill in for a Broken Education System

Military.com ^ | 10/06/2023 | Steve Beynon

[Blood of Tyrants]

Nearly every student, sitting at desks in Army uniforms at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, had a similar story. The public schools they came from were crumbling: There were holes in the walls, books held together with duct tape, few computers, not enough teachers and failing air conditioning that made paying attention in class impossible in the sweltering heat.

Test scores, which were already falling before the pandemic, took a nosedive, and recent years have seen a blitz in teacher strikes over poor working conditions and being paid wages not far above the poverty level.

For the Army to fill its ranks with aggressive recruiting quotas, it needs applicants who can meet a baseline of academic standards meant to be measured by the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB. A dwindling pool of young Americans can meet those enlistment requirements, forcing the Army to pick up the slack as it scrambles to get kids up to snuff.

[MinorityRepublican]

What US work force? In the last interview round over half of the applicants were ethnic Indian or Chinese.

It's true. Our best students are either Indian or Chinese. I wonder if eventually in a generation or two, all of our doctors will be Indian or Chinese?

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Horse sh!t. Wage suppression. End H-1B and wages will rise then Americans will do those jobs.

I'll repeat, these are six figure software development jobs in Silicon Valley, not some drudge IT work back in New Jersey. These are good jobs, and the candidates we get out of college for these jobs are predominantly ethnic Indians and Chinese graduating from good schools like UC Berkely, Stanford, etc. If we don't hire them, there's no shortage of other companies in the area who will - and no one is underpaying them. If you know the slightest thing about the cost of living in Silicon Valley, you'll realize that we can't underpay them.

Sorry that reality is at odds with the narrative you're trying to flog, but those are the facts.

[central_va]

Answer the question: Endng H-1b will raise wages. True or false.

[central_va]

Question 2: You told me how much your hires make now How much do YOU make per year.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Answer the question: Endng H-1b will raise wages. True or false.

For IT work and some other fields? Yeah, I'd think it's true. For the kinds of software development jobs I'm talking about? I doubt it. I know the salaries of the people on my team. I have no idea what their visa situations are unless they tell me - only HR would know that.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Question 2: You told me how much your hires make now How much do YOU make per year.

More than the fresh college grads we hire.

[central_va]

Dodge.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Dodge.

If you really think I'm going to tell you what my salary is - well, the way you think isn't my problem.

Other than that, I've told you the reality of what I see, and how it ties in to the current US education system, which was the subject of the posted article. But I get it, you've got a problem with H1-B. I'm not going to argue in favor of H1-B - I think the system is widely abused and used to exert downward pressure on the salaries of certain fields. But mine is not really one of them.

[RowdyRoo]

When I worked at at&t as an HR staffer, we often rejected people due to EEOC requirements. If we need to fill a position, we had to advertise it knowing only a certain sex or group member would be hired. Test scores or educational level never factored into the decision. We used the verbal- qualified or non-qualified to avoid legal issues.