The Associated Press reported that one out of four people who take the entrance exam in hopes of joining the United States Army are failing. More and more younger people than ever are not graduating high school due to the lack of basic reading and mathematical skills required to ready them for a fruitful career or in order to get into college. Over twenty percent of the individuals who participate in the entrance exam are receiving below the minimum score to enter into any of the five branches of the United States military forces.
Furthermore, they are finding that the younger generation that usually would be eligible to join the military either have criminal records, have not graduated from high school, or they are not physically fit. Some educators say that they are shocked at the large number of students who do graduate but haven’t necessarily earned right to walk the stage and grab the diploma and the end of their high school careers.
Many of the questions on the entrance exam can be so simple and basic that a fifth grader can answer them. The AP reported that an example of a basic question on the exam could be as simple as: “If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?” Yet, such a high percentage of the high school graduates attempting to gain entry into the armed forces can not achieve the minimum score required to pass. The AP further reported that this is the first year that the United States Army released the statistics of the exam. In the past five years, out of approximately 350,000 applicants who took the exam, only half of them proceeded on to become an Army member. Some say this is the result of an education system that is not difficult enough and merely pushing students through.