For those who don’t know, the entrance exam for the US military is a standardized test called the ASVAB, and is one of the best vocational aptitude tests out there. The ASVAB includes tests in 10 areas: general science (GS), arithmetic reasoning (AR), word knowledge (WK), paragraph comprehension (PC), mathematics knowledge (MK), electronics information (EI), auto information (AI), shop information (SI), mechanical comprehension (MC) and assembling objects (AO).
The test is scored as a percentile. That is, the score ranges from 1 to 99. A 60 would indicate that you scored higher than 60 percent of the people who have taken the exam. For that reason, a perfectly average person would score a 50. The score required to enlist is different for each branch of the military, with the lowest being a 30 for the Army, and the highest being a 36 for the Coast Guard. (There are waivers that allow even lower scores to qualify)
With that being said, black applicants are half as likely to reach the minimum score as any other demographic. In fact, a whopping 40% of black test takers cannot achieve a passing score on the ASVAB. The average score for blacks is 38 and for Hispanics is 44, compared to whites’ average score of 55. These scores reflect the similar racial gaps on other standardized exams.
This is more problematic than it appears at first glance, going back to my post about licensing and certification. Every applicant for the military has a high school diploma- a piece of paper issued from their school district certifying that they can read, write, and perform arithmetic, yet are dumber than two thirds of the test takers. Even worse, if you extend this to those who have dropped out of school before high school graduation, a whopping 60% of US blacks can’t pass this exam. Our education system is a waste of money that is largely accomplishing nothing but grooming children to become liberal sexual deviants.
Now there are many who will claim that this is caused by some sort of racism, using the stupid metric of “anything that results in disproportionate results for blacks is racist” instead of looking deeper into the causes. Why? Looking deeper is difficult and exposes uncomfortable realities.
16 Comments
EN2 SS · February 22, 2023 at 11:22 am
The short answer? Culture.
The long answer? Culture and Johnsons Great Society Insanity.
McChuck · February 22, 2023 at 6:36 pm
Culture and genetics. You can’t fix stupid. You can’t deal with willful ignorance and apathy.
Blacks have had 150+ years to adapt themselves to civilized society. They can’t, or they won’t. Or both. Doesn’t really matter.
EN2 SS · February 22, 2023 at 8:25 pm
I have to disagree, I grew up in the black part of my little town and the kids I grew up with turned out just fine, thank you. When Johnson started that crap and the number of kids without dads became a money maker for the girls, it all went to hell.
McChuck · February 23, 2023 at 10:17 am
And I had to get my little white kids out of Bodymore, Murderland because my 8 year old girl was sexually assaulted in the hallway of her school (standing in line, in front of teachers, who did nothing), and my 5 year old boy was getting beaten up almost every day (in class, in front of a teacher who did nothing).
SiG · February 23, 2023 at 8:45 am
I’m with EN2 SS on this. I’ve worked with some very sharp black engineers, don’t think I ever saw a diversity hire (maybe I was lucky). Those guys came from solid families with mom and dad who played by the old societal rules. Got married, stayed married, committed to raising kids together. One who stood out was very high-ranking software engineer who paid for his degree by joining the USMC. If you’ve flown commercial airlines, your life has depended on his software.
I’m not saying that “nature vs. nurture” debate is all nurture, but there’s no denying that LBJ’s great society destroyed the culture. In the early ’60s, blacks and whites had the same out of wedlock birth rate – about 20%. They were the civilized society you talk about. Now it’s flipped and while it’s worse for both, in black society it’s more like 20% have a proper family upbringing.
Divemedic · February 23, 2023 at 10:43 am
I know black people who are great at what they do and are intelligent, upstanding members of society. I’m not arguing that ALL blacks are the same. It’s a Bell curve, and those who become engineers, doctors, etc are on the right side of that curve. (So are whites and Asians who do the same)
Still, the statistics are undeniable: as a group, blacks are a full standard deviation below whites, and nearly two standard deviations below Asians, in intelligence.
This has an effect on things like wealth, violent tendencies, and success.
TRX · February 22, 2023 at 11:30 am
> Our education system is a waste of money
—
The error is assuming the “education system” has anything to do with education.
Even when I was incarcerated in it, it was obvious that its primary purpose was “free” day care until we reached the age of majority, which conveniently generally happened in the senior year of high school.
When I turned 18 and the police would no longer be able to drag me back to that hellhole, I dropped my books off at the office and walked away. My parents still got threatening calls from truant officers, though. In all the years since, nobody has ever demanded to see a “high school diploma”. In fact, most job applications carefully phrase things like “what was the high school you attended”, without asking if you got a diploma.
I signed up for some college courses years later. They didn’t want to know about a meaningless diploma either.
big Al · February 22, 2023 at 7:56 pm
As one elderly gentleman told me when I was a young man:
“You will not receive an education, however you might receive the tools with which to educate yourself”.
June J · February 22, 2023 at 2:15 pm
After taking the ASVAB in 1978, my recruiter asked “what job do you want to do in the Navy?” I responded by asking which jobs I qualified for. His answer, “All of them.”
Raised by a public school teacher, educated in private schools.
EN2 SS · February 22, 2023 at 8:20 pm
When I finished the testing in Navy boot camp, they first tried to talk me into nuclear power school. Was never told what I measured at.
EN2 SS · February 22, 2023 at 8:21 pm
Crap, boot camp summer of 1967, all public schools.
TRX · February 26, 2023 at 3:34 pm
The Navy *always* pushes Nuke. I think the recruiters get a bonus.
When I got out of high school I looked at the military. A regular Navy hitch was four years, but you had to commit to six for the nuke program.
School was three years, I think. I asked what the drop-out rate was.
75%
Per year.
And you still had the six-year hitch.
No, I didn’t think Navy Nuke was an attractive proposition.
The Army offered a *much* better deal, but I decided to pass on that, too. In retrospect I should have taken it.
Divemedic · February 26, 2023 at 3:50 pm
Recruiters have a quota. The nuke program got the recruiters double credit- every person signing to be a nuke counted as two people towards their quota.
The program had REALLY high washout rates, but not because of academics. Most washouts were due to other reasons. I washed out when I was caught drinking under age while off duty a year into the program. That meant I was stuck with a 5 year commitment. I was sent to the fleet. When I got there, more than 90% of the electricians on my ship were washouts from the nuke program. It happened so often that the sailors in the fleet had a name for it, calling the washouts “nuclear waste.”
The reason this was done was because the Navy was having problems recruiting smart, motivated people for any job that wasn’t related to computers, jet fighters, or other technical positions. The Navy needed smart people to do the other jobs as well, but were losing a lot of quality prospects to the Air Force.
So they came up with this nuke program. Trick people into joining for a technical job, wash them out for a variety of reasons, and then send the washouts to the fleet, where they could be used to fill a lot of slots that were hurting for people.
Once the military started cutting back its size during the Clinton administration, washouts were no longer needed, and the nuke program washout rates dropped dramatically. The attrition rate nowadays is less than 10 percent.
Fweedom Fwies · February 22, 2023 at 2:24 pm
Comrade McNamara let in Private Pyles as cannon fodder to keep the MIC profit portfolio up, we can do it again!
Herr Kissinger said they were all just poor dumb animal political pawns anyway.
Pass the fweedom fwies, comrade, invest your son in the fortified democracy, because we’re all in this together.
Chiquitastan is the home of the winningest winnarz evarz!
VietVet · February 24, 2023 at 4:57 pm
I was drafted in 1972. Went to the recruiting office as directed and the Air Force recruiter was the only one there.
He explained my options and I took the ASVAB later in the week. When I went back in I discovered that I had literally aced every section.
I went Air Force avionics, did tech school in six months self paced, average time was 12 months.
By spring of 1974 I was in the central highlands of Thailand sending drones into north Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with a program called Buffalo Hunter.
Look it up
Big Country Expat · February 26, 2023 at 10:00 pm
Scored a 118? 120? on the ASVAB.
Was offered “Interrogator/Linguist” but AIT was waaaaay too long for my liking. Same with Intelligence Analyst/Linguist.
Funny you mention the nook program, the Navy guy tried to lure me away from the Army with promises of wine, wimmen and song, plus SCADS of cashola at MEPS when the scores came out… Go figure…
Went Infantry (11H Heavy Anti-Armor Weapons Infantryman)
Wouldn’t have it any other way…
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