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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

He's right about the reading part, though. Kids coming out of high school and college these days don't always seem they've had an education.

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His words: "The fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that," King said.

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ORIGINAL: lightshineon
That may be tue in rare cases, but there is a college entrance exzams ACT, SAT. Children in OKlahoma have to pass a test to graduate also.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

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ORIGINAL: lightshineon
That may be tue in rare cases, but there is a college entrance exzams ACT, SAT. Children in OKlahoma have to pass a test to graduate also.

Same here.

It may not make sense when students have to pass state exams and the ACT and SAT and Accuplacer and whatever else they're passing. It may not make sense when they're already in their second or third year of college, but I'm here to tell you that I taught college juniors and seniors who couldn't read past an elementary reading level. I worked with college graduate after college graduate after college graduate who couldn't spell, couldn't write a coherent sentence, knew nothing about history, couldn't explain how a president is selected, have never read a book that wasn't required reading and can't tell you what even those were about. Some came from state universities, some came from Ivy League schools, no matter and no difference.

While I agree it is wrong and ignorant to claim our troops are not educated or can't read, and I don't agree that King should be making digs at anything, I do agree that being well-educated is not the norm.

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ORIGINAL: SonInMe1

I work in a job where you can walk off the street and do it...and we have a hard time finding people who CAN do it or WANT to do it. The people I work with cannot read or can at a very low level, and cannot add subtract multiply or divide without a calculator.

There are state tests in Florida schools, FCAT's, and they not only determine the education level your child recieves, regular school or a magnate program, the decide state funding as well.....and its a joke.

The tests are easy, extremely so and all we hear is how hard they are...from educatiors. Its almost as if they are not in favor of better education but would rather have easier tests to guarentee more funding.

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I do not doubt this, but is there proof these people are in the armed forces?

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“Tests don’t tell you the answer to the most critical question for the Army, how will you do in combat?” Goure said. But, he added, accepting too many recruits with low test scores could increase training costs and leave technical jobs unfilled.

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ORIGINAL: SonInMe1
I work in a job where you can walk off the street and do it...and we have a hard time finding people who CAN do it or WANT to do it. The people I work with cannot read or can at a very low level, and cannot add subtract multiply or divide without a calculator.

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I suspect Stephen King was getting an inappropriate dig on the military or the war. And I can't speak to the kinds of people who are enlisting in any branch of our armed forces. However, I did have a student once who was a Marine. She spent several years counseling other marines with drug and alcohol problems. I assumed these were problems they ended up with after combat, but I was confused because this was about eight or nine years ago and we weren't in a war. So I asked about combat and she laughed and said they enlisted with drug and alcohol problems. I said I didn't think you could enlist if you were a drug addict--weren't there tests for that or something and she said, "You'd be surprised at the people they let into the Marines."

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ORIGINAL: landabee
It isn't fair to paint with a broad brush all enlisted personnel as poorly educated. It also isn't wise to ignore the possible fiscal and security consequences of the trend of accepting more and more with lowered test scores and criminal histories.

Hollywood is all about "shaking thing up" and "making noise". Mr. King has done that.

But that doesn't mean that objective dialogue concerning recruitment and retention isn't warranted.

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In the last four years on our college campus.... military recruiter visits have jumped from an average of each branch visiting campus quarterly, to each branch attempting to be on campus monthly. Is that a red herring, perhaps.

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ORIGINAL: landabee

Oh, I should add... to be fair:

There has been a change in the entrance requirements. The military states that each case for acceptance with the "new standards" are reviewed.

But the truth of the matter is that low test scores and prior criminal histories are being waived at a much higher rate than ever previously. As a person that works at a community college........ we see folks with "special" high school diplomas all the time. So........ I would question if all of the diplomas that are accepted by our recruiters are standardized, or perhaps the special one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15197832/

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ORIGINAL: rhippie

On behalf of those of us in the great State of Maine I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for that raving lunatic. His views don't represent the vast majority of Mainers (probably because they can't read well enough to understand them[8|]).

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ORIGINAL: rhippie

On behalf of those of us in the great State of Maine I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for that raving lunatic.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

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ORIGINAL: SonInMe1
I work in a job where you can walk off the street and do it...and we have a hard time finding people who CAN do it or WANT to do it. The people I work with cannot read or can at a very low level, and cannot add subtract multiply or divide without a calculator.

Now there's a thread worth starting! Getting people willing to do anything anymore is a challenge for many businesses.

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I suspect Stephen King was getting an inappropriate dig on the military or the war.