Posted on 01/27/2024 8:43:34 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The US Navy had to deliver some bad news last October. Like the other armed service branches, they missed their recruiting goals again. And they missed all of them. By a lot. The enlisted ranks goal for fiscal year 2023 had been 37,700, but they came up more than 7,000 short of that. They missed the enlisted reserve goal by more than 2,000 and fell short by hundreds in the goal for new officers. This forced them to raise the goals for 2024 even higher. But how do they plan on accomplishing that feat?
Sadly, they have resorted to the same tactic they’ve used in the past. They are lowering the standards for admitting new recruits. You previously needed a high school diploma or at least a GED to be accepted. They are doing away with the requirement, providing they can pass the Armed Services Qualification Test. And they’ve lowered the passing grade for that examination even further. (Associated Press)
The U.S. Navy is starting to enlist individuals who didn’t graduate from high school or get a GED, marking the second time in about a year that the service has opened the door to lower-performing recruits as it struggles to meet enlistment goals.
The decision follows a move in December 2022 to bring in a larger number of recruits who score very low on the Armed Services Qualification Test. Both are fairly rare steps that the other military services largely avoid or limit, even though they are all finding it increasingly difficult to attract the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental and moral standards.
Under the new plan, Navy recruits without an education credential will be able to join as long as they score 50 or above on the qualification test, which is out of 99. The last time the service took individuals without education credentials was in 2000.
These are some seriously low standards for admission. Asking someone to manage to graduate high school isn’t a terribly high bar to set. And the qualification test used to require a considerably higher score. Scoring 50 out of a possible 99 is barely half. I still recall taking that test and sweating out the results even though I was ranked in the top ten or fifteen in my high school class. (Not to brag, but I almost aced it.)
The Navy had previously lowered the standards for physical fitness for recruits, both in terms of weight limits and stamina. They appear to be assuming that the recruits will burn off the weight and get in better shape during basic training. That’s generally true, assuming you don’t drop from a coronary event or respiratory issues on the drill field.
Perhaps these changes will help the Navy meet its goals this year. Perhaps not. Time will tell. But what sort of force are we putting in the field if the admission standards are this low? The world is currently in turmoil and the Navy is being tasked with significant challenges taking on the Houthis in the Red Sea, with other possible conflicts on the horizon. You really want your best and your brightest to answer the call. For some of the more basic, manual labor ratings you can probably fudge a bit, but for the assignments dealing with weapons control and communications, the military’s technical schools are as difficult as many college courses.
We really need people who are in good physical shape as well. While it’s not nearly as rough as serving in the field with the Army or the Marines, sailors have to stay on station and alert for long periods of time during General Quarters. Reloading the larger weapons systems can be grueling work. The bottom line is that publicly lowering our standards in this fashion sends a bad message to our adversaries. It’s already bad enough that we have a Commander-in-Chief who is neither feared nor respected around the globe at the moment. We’ll be taken even less seriously if Russia, China, and Iran believe our troops are a bunch of uneducated fatties. Something needs to be done to get our enlistment rates back up where they used to be and ensure that high-caliber people are once again willing to serve their country in uniform.
You don’t even have to be mentally competent
When my Dad was in the Army Air Corp in World War 2 they didn’t need to have a high school degree.
Just look at our current commander in chief.
That's true. If you look at elementary school books and curricula even at the turn of the century, they are way over the head of today's high schooler-- and even most of today's adults. People used to be taught the classics, religion, and critical thinking skills. Not so today.
That was back when probably 30 to 40 percent of people didn’t finish high school, that didn’t mean they were stupid, just that in the middle of the Great Depression every able bodied family member had to work just to feed the family.
Plus the fact the education used to mean to EDUCATE; the average 5th grader in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s was better educated and had a better grasp of the world and how it works than most college graduates today.
Talk to anybody with a Masters or a Phd; ask them questions like what does the 4th Amendment say, they can’t answer to save their own property.
Ask them where Ecuador is located on a map, they will probably tell you downtown LA or San Francisco.
Ask them who John Locke or Sir William Blackstone are, they will probably say they are members of that new English Rock Band.
Ask them what the word PHYLUM means in the natural world, they will probably tell you that it is some “new sexual orientation” that none of us have ever heard of but we sure as hell are PREJUDICED AGAINST!
These are all things we were supposed to know and understand before we got out of the 8th grade, now this is considered
Phd level knowledge.
Young people today are just ignorant/uneducated/brainwashed and pretty much worthless for living in a hostile world, hell even a Supreme Court Judge is unable to tell us what a woman is!
Pretty PATHETIC IF YOU ASK ME!!!!
That was back when probably 30 to 40 percent of people didn’t finish high school, that didn’t mean they were stupid, just that in the middle of the Great Depression every able bodied family member had to work just to feed the family.
Plus the fact the education used to mean to EDUCATE; the average 5th grader in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s was better educated and had a better grasp of the world and how it works than most college graduates today.
Talk to anybody with a Masters or a Phd; ask them questions like what does the 4th Amendment say, they can’t answer to save their own property.
Ask them where Ecuador is located on a map, they will probably tell you downtown LA or San Francisco.
Ask them who John Locke or Sir William Blackstone are, they will probably say they are members of that new English Rock Band.
Ask them what the word PHYLUM means in the natural world, they will probably tell you that it is some “new sexual orientation” that none of us have ever heard of but we sure as hell are PREJUDICED AGAINST!
These are all things we were supposed to know and understand before we got out of the 8th grade, now this is considered
Phd level knowledge.
Young people today are just ignorant/uneducated/brainwashed and pretty much worthless for living in a hostile world, hell even a Supreme Court Judge is unable to tell us what a woman is!
Pretty PATHETIC IF YOU ASK ME!!!!
>> If you look at elementary school books and curricula even at the turn of the century, they are way over the head of today’s high schooler
You can thank our modern puke-sucking “educator” class for that.
U.S. military likes to imagine, that it needs “game controllers” instead of Americans educated in our worthy American Heritage, limited government, foundations and principles of freedom for, and in, a democratic-republic.
Anyone wonder why actually decent and desirable personnel don’t want to be involved with a military run by woke and progressive morons, under a drooling decrepit dementia patient?
Oregon Eliminates Educational Standards
For this school year, Oregon students will not be required to demonstrate skills in reading, writing, and math. Until 2026, an Oregon high school diploma no longer guarantees academic achievement, but only participation in a system with undefined parameters. The legislators, school districts, and the governor supporting Senate Bill 744 saw that this “will benefit Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color”.
The state adopted the position held by many 19th century abolitionists. When I read Fredrick Douglass’ autobiographies, one passage always stays with me. After speaking to an abolitionist audience, Douglass considered the evening a great success, because he concluded his talk believing these people were convinced, he was equally human with them.
He mentioned this as a significant event, because many strong supporters of black freedom questioned whether these people were fully human. If educators would treat minorities as individuals, they would design programs allowing opportunities for achievement commensurate with those they see for white students.
I remember Dr. Martin Luther King saying, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…..little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
To me these men’s understanding of brotherhood and individual value proves more meaningful than any perception of racial or ethnic inferiority.
Oregon just dropped all graduation standards, failing all of its students in the name of ‘equity’
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4288044-oregon-just-dropped-all-graduation-standards-failing-all-of-its-students-in-the-name-of-equity/
Just show up (most of the time) and don't cause (too much) trouble.
How stupid -- and unmotivated -- must you be to not even graduate?
I once had a 1937 textbook designed for high school. It covered geometry, algebra, trigonometry, physics, five languages, biology, botany, logic, Greek, American and Roman history, English grammar, chemistry, and more.
With this medium-sized (pre-war) book, you could teach yourself to have the equivalent of a Bachelors degree today!
I remember reading about an Army infantryman who was nudged into accepting a unit citation. Even after four years, he wasn’t conversant in English!
My aunt was a teacher in the ‘30s, and there are some of her text books still hanging around at the family farm. Hubby is a physicist and he couldn’t believe the level of difficulty with the math in the elementary school books.
In the 70’s, you needed at least a grade 8 to get into the Canadian Forces. A series of aptitude tests determined hireability/suitability. In a similar vein, a post on FR years ago suggested NYC employers were looking for two things in young prospects: punctuality and enough cognitive capacity to engage in conversation. They’ll teach them the business. I’m afraid that search is even more difficult today.
Take that, Putin!!!! We don’t need no soldiers who can read* because WE ARE AMERICA, and therefore INVINCIBLE!
*not that US High School graduates can read
I read that World War II soldiers won the war with the average educational attainment at 8th grade, and then they went on to build the mightiest industral complex in history.
Of course, an 8th grade back then was equivalent to at least college freshman now.
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