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Army to grow its own high school grads

Faced with a shrinking pool of eligible young recruits, the Army is getting into the business of granting diplomas at its own homegrown high school.

In a pilot program scheduled to begin Monday at Fort Jackson, S.C., qualifying high school dropouts will start a four-week curriculum at the new Army Preparatory School to earn a general equivalency diploma.

The plan was to start classes of 60 students each on four consecutive Mondays. As of Friday, only two students were enrolled for the first week, but 36 were expected to arrive for the second week’s class.

Within a few months, according to plans, the GED program will expand to eight weeks and students in those classes will earn a fully accredited high school diploma that will be recognized as equal to a diploma from any American high school.

The Army is working with new legislation in South Carolina to obtain accreditation as a charter high school. Later, the Army hopes to expand accreditation to other states so that soldiers enrolled in the prep school can get a diploma from their original high school.

All of it will be in exchange for a minimum enlistment in the Army, including any bonuses that apply to the soldier’s military occupational specialty, just before the new soldier goes through basic combat training.

Recruiting for the program began in mid-July.

“I’m stoked about it. It’s a big deal,” said Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of Training and Doctrine Command, whose subordinate Accessions Command is spearheading the effort.

“There are young people out there ... we can make fully qualified by doing something different, and this is something different,” he said.

According to initial rough estimates, Wallace said, there could be as many as 300,000 people who meet eligibility criteria for the prep school.

Wallace has sounded the alarm for the past two years about the waning eligibility of people between the ages of 17 and 24.

Studies and focus groups cited by Wallace show that only 28 percent of people in that age group meet the Army’s physical, intellectual and moral criteria for enlistment.

He sees the prep school program “as an opportunity to get at a segment of the population we can’t get at right now.”

“Whether it raises that 28 percent makes very little difference to me, as long as we can get all the young people who are smart but not educated and encourage them to get the education our society values and use that education in their future life, and part of that is a stop in the Army for three years or 30,” Wallace said.

He expects an Army prep school to be established at each of the Army’s other basic training sites.

The Army has been criticized in recent years for methods taken to meet recruiting demands, including the enlistment of increased numbers of high-school dropouts and those requiring waivers for criminal records.

Prospects for the prep school must score 50 or higher on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, and must be otherwise waiver-free.

The student-recruits will be part of a new company under the base support battalion at Fort Jackson, the largest of the Army’s five basic training posts, but their four weeks won’t be anything like basic training — and aren’t meant to be.

They will spend eight hours a day in class, five days a week, studying subjects like math, English and U.S. history.

The soldiers will be confined to post, live in barracks, wear the Army Combat Uniform and do physical training at 6 a.m., but unlike basic trainees, they will have access to cell phones for family support.

The curriculum will be taught by civilian contractors, and the company’s 17-member uniformed cadre will provide the military structure.

Four platoon sergeants, eight squad leaders, and training and supply noncommissioned officers will work with the students in a one-hour class familiarizing them with basic map reading, first aid, drill and ceremony, and customs and courtesies.

The soldiers selected to work in the new company are combat veterans, and their role is aimed at “soldierizing” the new recruits in preparation for Army life, commander Capt. Brian Gaddis said.

“I looked over the curriculum and I don’t know how much help we can give them,” Gaddis said of the standardized GED. “This is a very difficult test and I don’t foresee my cadre being tutors, but more supervising study halls, making sure nobody’s getting into trouble.”

Pvt. Kyle Rucker, 19, is one of two student-soldiers who will start in the first class at Army Preparatory School. He exemplifies the young people sought for the Army’s new GED program and has signed on for four years.

He dropped out of high school in Warren, Mich., in fall 2007 when he was a junior. He made the decision after his father died, saying he “wanted to grow up and get a job. I didn’t want to have to wait.”

“I’ve always been independent. I just wanted to work. I got bored with school,” he said.

Rucker had always wanted to join the Army, too, and walked into a recruiting station in March.

His recruiter aggressively helped him pursue his GED.

“He called me all the time, like twice a day, and he helped me find Web sites where I could study,” Rucker said.

In the meantime, Rucker took the ASVAB, filled out all the enlistment papers and was ready to ship when his recruiter learned of the Army’s GED program.

“It’s definitely a sense of a goal I’m working on accomplishing. I came this far, put as much work into it as I could, hoping to get the best out of it,” he said. He admitted he’s “a little bit nervous about basic training, but I guess everybody is.”