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Philadelphia Inquirer
August 13, 2007 The program assists privates who dropped out after signing up. Some question keeping them.
By Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press
ANNVILLE, Pa. - Brittany Vojta survived boot camp. It was high school she couldn't get through.
So the National Guard ran her through a program it started this year in Pennsylvania for privates who drop out of high school after joining the military.
In an old barracks at Fort Indiantown Gap, the 18-year-old Cleveland woman and other dropouts spent three intensive weeks in class this summer to help them get their GEDs - so they would meet the minimum educational requirement to stay in the Guard.
Straining to fill its ranks with the Iraq war in its fifth year, the military is taking on an ever-bigger role providing basic education to recruits. It's a strategy that is potentially risky for the military as it strives to maintain the quality of its force, but one that's clearly giving dropouts like Vojta a second chance.
"Something happened in that soldier's life that was bad. . . . We have the ability to stop another bad action from happening - them getting discharged from the military," said Sgt. First Class John Walton, 32, who started the Pennsylvania program and who said it was not about filling quotas but about helping the troops.
In a wider initiative known as Education Plus, the Army and Army National Guard have also been reaching out to dropouts - some of them years out of school - with a promise of helping them get their GEDs if they enlist. So far, more than 13,000 recruits have earned GEDs through the program, started in 2005.
Pennsylvania's GED program is a retention tool aimed at soldiers who joined in high school while in good academic standing then did not graduate. The military allows those as young as 17 to join, but they must have permission from a parent.
The three-week course, also open to recruits from other states, goes beyond the classroom. Privates get up at 4:45 a.m. daily for physical training, spend nine hours in classes, have a study hall in the evening, and learn boot camp-type skills like making a bed.
It's not your typical high school classroom: As a civilian or military teacher leads instruction, a drill sergeant is also present.
"I never understood math . . . for four years in high school I couldn't do it," said Vojta, a private first class with the Ohio National Guard who passed the GED test and hopes next to become a military police officer. "Come here for a couple of weeks and I got it down because they've actually taken the time to explain it."
The program evolved from a tutoring effort in Pittsburgh staffed by a guardsman's wife, a teacher, who volunteered her time to help 17- and 18-year-old recruits struggling in high school classes.
Since the Guard-run classes began in March, more than 85 of the 120 privates who participated have gone on to pass the GED test, about the same success rate as for all GED test-takers nationwide.
Timothy Bower, 18, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, said he slept through many high school classes. If he'd studied on his own for the GED, "I pretty much would have repeated my high school career," he said.
He hopes next to enroll in the military's truck driving school. After that, Bower, from Hamburg in Southeast Pennsylvania, said he might like to work for his uncle's trucking company.
Bower said his family was more accepting of his joining the military when they learned he would also get his GED.
Teacher Carissa Krzak, 29, of Camp Hill, Pa., said she had received thank-you letters from her students.
"They are given a second chance, and they really want to take advantage of that, make the best of the situation," she said.
Defense analyst Cindy Williams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said the military could be hurting itself over the long term by recruiting dropouts.
The Department of Defense's own studies over 40 years have shown that soldiers with a high school diploma are more likely than those with an equivalent degree to finish an enlistment term.
"What the Army doesn't like is high turnover," Williams said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat representing the Seventh District, centered in Delaware County, and a former Navy vice admiral, said some troops with only GEDs have gone on to make great soldiers. But he said he was worried about the recruitment trends.
"What we have here is an erosion, a downward trend, in recruitment quality. Still great people, but if our future military is increasingly based on technical prowess, recruiting those of the highest quality we can is being significantly impacted," he said.
August 13, 2007 The program assists privates who dropped out after signing up. Some question keeping them.
By Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press
ANNVILLE, Pa. - Brittany Vojta survived boot camp. It was high school she couldn't get through.
So the National Guard ran her through a program it started this year in Pennsylvania for privates who drop out of high school after joining the military.
In an old barracks at Fort Indiantown Gap, the 18-year-old Cleveland woman and other dropouts spent three intensive weeks in class this summer to help them get their GEDs - so they would meet the minimum educational requirement to stay in the Guard.
Straining to fill its ranks with the Iraq war in its fifth year, the military is taking on an ever-bigger role providing basic education to recruits. It's a strategy that is potentially risky for the military as it strives to maintain the quality of its force, but one that's clearly giving dropouts like Vojta a second chance.
"Something happened in that soldier's life that was bad. . . . We have the ability to stop another bad action from happening - them getting discharged from the military," said Sgt. First Class John Walton, 32, who started the Pennsylvania program and who said it was not about filling quotas but about helping the troops.
In a wider initiative known as Education Plus, the Army and Army National Guard have also been reaching out to dropouts - some of them years out of school - with a promise of helping them get their GEDs if they enlist. So far, more than 13,000 recruits have earned GEDs through the program, started in 2005.
Pennsylvania's GED program is a retention tool aimed at soldiers who joined in high school while in good academic standing then did not graduate. The military allows those as young as 17 to join, but they must have permission from a parent.
The three-week course, also open to recruits from other states, goes beyond the classroom. Privates get up at 4:45 a.m. daily for physical training, spend nine hours in classes, have a study hall in the evening, and learn boot camp-type skills like making a bed.
It's not your typical high school classroom: As a civilian or military teacher leads instruction, a drill sergeant is also present.
"I never understood math . . . for four years in high school I couldn't do it," said Vojta, a private first class with the Ohio National Guard who passed the GED test and hopes next to become a military police officer. "Come here for a couple of weeks and I got it down because they've actually taken the time to explain it."
The program evolved from a tutoring effort in Pittsburgh staffed by a guardsman's wife, a teacher, who volunteered her time to help 17- and 18-year-old recruits struggling in high school classes.
Since the Guard-run classes began in March, more than 85 of the 120 privates who participated have gone on to pass the GED test, about the same success rate as for all GED test-takers nationwide.
Timothy Bower, 18, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, said he slept through many high school classes. If he'd studied on his own for the GED, "I pretty much would have repeated my high school career," he said.
He hopes next to enroll in the military's truck driving school. After that, Bower, from Hamburg in Southeast Pennsylvania, said he might like to work for his uncle's trucking company.
Bower said his family was more accepting of his joining the military when they learned he would also get his GED.
Teacher Carissa Krzak, 29, of Camp Hill, Pa., said she had received thank-you letters from her students.
"They are given a second chance, and they really want to take advantage of that, make the best of the situation," she said.
Defense analyst Cindy Williams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said the military could be hurting itself over the long term by recruiting dropouts.
The Department of Defense's own studies over 40 years have shown that soldiers with a high school diploma are more likely than those with an equivalent degree to finish an enlistment term.
"What the Army doesn't like is high turnover," Williams said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat representing the Seventh District, centered in Delaware County, and a former Navy vice admiral, said some troops with only GEDs have gone on to make great soldiers. But he said he was worried about the recruitment trends.
"What we have here is an erosion, a downward trend, in recruitment quality. Still great people, but if our future military is increasingly based on technical prowess, recruiting those of the highest quality we can is being significantly impacted," he said.
