Posted on 03/23/2011 8:24:25 PM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
High school senior Jared Dennis wants to join the U.S. Air Force. If you look at his credentials, he would appear to be someone any branch of the military would be happy to have. He has a 3.9 grade point average while taking courses like statistics and Japanese and he plays in a regional orchestra.
But when he went through the recruitment process with the Air Force, he was told he is a Tier 2 candidate because he attends an online virtual high school.
Less than 1 percent of the people the Air Force accepts can be Tier 2 candidates, which includes home-schooled students and those who earn a GED.
“It was heart-breaking, to say the least, that I put in all this time and effort looking at how I could get into the Air Force, not only for myself but to serve my nation. That’s one thing that I really want to do,” Dennis said.
He and his mother, Alice, met Wednesday with Congressman Joe Wilson, R-SC, and state superintendent Dr. Mick Zais, who’s a retired Army brigadier general.
Wilson serves as chairman of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, served 31 years in the National Guard and has four sons in the military. He told Dennis he’ll work to get the Department of Defense to change its policy.
“When I return next week to Washington, I’ll be working to put this in the National Defense Authorization Act,” Wilson said.
Tier 1 students are those who graduate from a traditional high school, while Tier 2 students are those with alternative credentials, like a home school diploma, a GED or a diploma from a correspondence, Internet or distance-learning program.
Tier 3 is for someone without any secondary school credential.
Non-Tier 1 applicants who are accepted are limited to no more than 10 percent in the Army, 5 percent in the Navy and Marine Corps and less than 1 percent in the Air Force.
Zais said, “The difficulty and rigor of the curriculum in our cyber schools exceeds that in many of our traditional schools. Seems to me this is probably just a policy in Washington that made sense 15 years ago when there was a lot of fly-by-night companies offering fake degrees.”
He points out that the state’s virtual charter schools have the same accreditation as brick-and-mortar schools and students take the same standardized tests.
Dennis is still hoping he’ll be able to join the Air Force. If he’s not allowed to enlist, he said he plans to go to college and join ROTC.
They said, a frog would not bump his rear if he had wings. But they said does not put it in the story does it. He needs take his position in line.
Yes, I’m proud, but “Pops” stands for “Parachutist Over Phorty” and I’m “mom.”
And gratz to you and your family for bucking the system. You have my respect.
At least my public school taught me how to proofread.
The military is great training and experience for private sector success. Your husband sounds like a hard worker. Perhaps he should seek a challenging position in a corporation where he could increase his income and have more time for his kids.
During this time of great budgetary strain, on the Federal Government, it may be necessary to turn more in the military out to compete in the private sector.
As I’m sure you’re aware, the defense budget is a huge and ever growing portion of the national debt. It WILL have
to be cut substantially to avoid a national insolvency.
I know that our military leaders love our country and want to do their part to keep it from going bankrupt.
........ wouldn’t you agree?
During this time of great budgetary strain, on the Federal Government, it may be necessary to reduce earned benefits and retirement pay for our veterans.
As I’m sure you’re aware, the defense budget is a huge and ever growing portion of the national debt. It WILL have
to be cut substantially to avoid a national insolvency
I know that our military retirees love our country [they served her afterall] and want to do their part to keep it from going bankrupt.
...wouldn’t you agree?
I've seen the same with people who claimed traditional college degrees. Were their degrees fake? I don't know.
Look at the President. Columbia and Harvard -- think he's cutting it?
A neighbor family is homeschooling, I think. Six kids, I think, and I sympathize with their not wanting to subject them to Houston schools, which are a bunch of reverse-racism academies from what I've heard. If you don't want your kids to grow up racist, better to keep them at home, or go live in the suburbs.
Oops....sorry. LOL
No, I think he’s a fraud. The UP grads were within the scope of my experience. You can take that for what it’s worth, or leave it. I did not intend to offend anyone.
An education is worth what you’ve put into it. I found the UP grads unable to function within their job descriptions. I’m sure there are many capable UP grads. However, I found many capable people without a master’s degree from any institution.
I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Within the scope of my experience, the online-prepared master’s grads were unable to perform as well as the traditionally-educated grads.
My Son Elliot Harrold, from Istachatta (34636), has this press release (http://www.usafns.com/show-msg.shtml?state=fl&msg=18426) about his completing the USAF Basic Military Training. An item of note is that Elliot Graduated “Home School.” It took him a year to jump through all the hoops because he did not have a traditional HS Diploma. He was one of less than 3% accepted into the USAF that did not have a traditional HS diploma. That is interesting, and maybe news of this will motivate other non-traditional HS graduates not to give up trying to get in the USAF because it is possible. It might take a year though!
Elliot is currently training as a hydraulics specialist to work on fighters and other aircraft, and he is doing extremely well and I am very proud of him.
Best regards,
-Professor Ed
Ed Harrold MBA, BScEE
Wise Apps, LLC
352-540-0529 (mobile)
ed@wiseappsllc.com
http://www.wiseappsllc.com
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