J
JOSHUA HENSLEY THOUGHT HE HAD NO CHOICE. With his father disabled from lung cancer and his mother unemployed and raising his sister’s three children, the teen from Wabash, Ind., reluctantly dropped out of high school and went to work to help support his family. When that job ended, Hensley decided he needed a second chance at life — and with the help of the National Guard Patriot Academy, he got one. n “I call these kids ‘ghosts,’ because they’ve been forgotten by society,” says Patriot Academy Commandant Col. Perry Sarver Jr., USA. “They’re out there walking around, but no one is addressing their problems.”
The Patriot Academy is the brainchild of retired Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, former director of the Army National Guard, who announced the program in June 2008. After a year or so of planning, the academy officially opened at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, Ind., in August 2009, becoming the military’s first accredited high school. On March 18, after successfully completing a nine-month program, the academy’s first graduating class of 38 students received their diplomas. Vaughn thinks the Patriot Academy is an investment
in the Army’s most precious asset, noting dropouts make up “a workforce that’s not going to be available if we don’t get it right. It’s someone that’s not going to reach [his or her] full potential if we don’t get that diploma early enough,” he says. “We depend on this organization right here in this state to get it right.”
The challenges Statistics back him up. According to the Alliance For Ex- cellent Education, about 1.3 million students drop out of school each year. The average annual income for a high school dropout in 2005 was $17,299, compared to $26,933 for a high school graduate. According to the alliance, if the students who dropped out in 2009 all had graduated, the nation’s economy would have benefited from nearly $335 billion in additional income over the course of those students’ lifetimes. Dropout rates affect the military’s pool of potential
recruits, too — especially when spread out across all the branches of service. “You start with about 31 million gradu- ates a year,” says Sarver, “which goes down to around 11 million because so many don’t meet the height, weight,
5 8 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R AU G U S T 2 0 1 0
moral, or medical requirements. When you consider the propensity to join, which is three out of 10, the pool shrinks very quickly. What recruiters were forgetting about were all these dropouts, but there was no program to help them achieve their high school degree requirements.” Like Hensley, Patriot Academy recruits are not “bad”
kids, says Sarver. “They’re not criminals or drug addicts or anything like that,” he explains. “They’re kids who have been faced with unfortunate circumstances. We’ve partnered with guidance counselors and recruiters to identify those young people — either dropouts or [those] on the verge of quitting school — who need some matu- rity, confidence, and discipline in their lives.”
Getting in The requirements to join are the same as for any other Army National Guard recruit, says Sarver. Applicants must: n be between the ages of 17 and 21; n have completed 10th grade; n have scored a 31 or better on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test; n not have a record of any major criminal offense; n have been out of high school for at least six months, with 10 or fewer credit hours left to complete; and n not require a family-care plan for sole custody of a child. The usual height and weight requirements apply, and
applicants must pass a military physical exam for ad- mission. Recruits report for basic training before enroll- ing in the Patriot Academy and receive full military pay and benefits. “On day one, I tell them they have one mission with three objectives,” says Sarver. “One: You will get your high
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92