Study: 90% of Pittsburgh's young adults unfit for military service (Greensburg: crime, public school)

[Picksburg Stillers]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

I really find this hard to believe. Where did they take the sample of kids? In a particular school? I don't believe this study to be true. 90%? That can't be correct.

It seems like a lot of the variables would be correlated. For instance, I'd imagine high school dropouts or those who graduated but don't have minimal skills necessary to pass the military entrance test may also be responsible for most of the violent crime in the city. It wouldn't surprise me that if people are lazy in their studies, they are lazy in other things and probably overweight as well. In other words, to get to 90%, they are probably counting the same people twice or even three times. I don't see how they made any effort to correct for this.

[greg42]

So where do they get 90% then? I still haven't gotten to read the full report, but I don't see anything that would come out to 90% here given that some of those things would overlap. Only 20% of the kids who take the exam fail it? And that's a PA number not Pittsburgh. Lot of mixing of stats there, not an end to any speculation.

[Tinare]

In the "In Brief" section of the report, "An estimated (my emphasis) 80 to 90 percent of young adults in Pittsburgh -- approximately 25,000 young men and women age 18 to 24 -- are unable to join the military." The footnote to that sentence reads "This is a rough projection based on the data showing that more Pittsburgh youth than youth nationally do not graduate high school, are too poorly-educated to join the military even if they do graduate, and/or are too involved in crime -- see the data below and in the regular text for more details."

Translation -- we took a bunch of data collected by other people in other studies and then made up a conclusion.

Now, that's not to say that there are not some real issues about which to be concerned, but I would take this "report" for what it is, support for their particular agenda. I think that they have good intentions, and there are real problems. I just think that in order to get publicity, they have made very sensationalized statements.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by Tinare

In the "In Brief" section of the report, "An estimated (my emphasis) 80 to 90 percent of young adults in Pittsburgh -- approximately 25,000 young men and women age 18 to 24 -- are unable to join the military." The footnote to that sentence reads "This is a rough projection based on the data showing that more Pittsburgh youth than youth nationally do not graduate high school, are too poorly-educated to join the military even if they do graduate, and/or are too involved in crime -- see the data below and in the regular text for more details."

Translation -- we took a bunch of data collected by other people in other studies and then made up a conclusion.

Now, that's not to say that there are not some real issues about which to be concerned, but I would take this "report" for what it is, support for their particular agenda. I think that they have good intentions, and there are real problems. I just think that in order to get publicity, they have made very sensationalized statements.

You may be right, however why would they target this area rather than others?

[Tinare]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

You may be right, however why would they target this area rather than others?

They haven't. Go to the website. They've released Press Releases around the country. They have one report called "Too Fat to Fight: A Brief on Georgia." And "Michigan's Troubled Education System: A Threat to National Security."

[gg]

So this article is total bs and meant to be some hyped up nonsense with no real facts. I had to question 90%. I can see 30%. We are talking about the military. They take people out of prison for goodness sake!!

[west seattle gal]

Originally Posted by greg42

So where do they get 90% then? I still haven't gotten to read the full report, but I don't see anything that would come out to 90% here given that some of those things would overlap. Only 20% of the kids who take the exam fail it? And that's a PA number not Pittsburgh. Lot of mixing of stats there, not an end to any speculation.

Here's the PA report from that same group (Mission:Readiness, a non-profit group led by Senior military advocating for early childhood education):

http://www.missionreadiness.org/PAEE0609.pdf (broken link)

I think Pittsburgh was highlighted b/c it has the lowest HS grad rate of all major PA cities, and compared w/ select rural areas (see p.1 of the report). Combining that stat w/ the crime & health data, the estimate is 80-90% of the young adult population is unfit to serve. However, that's really not much higher than the national average of 75%.

However, this whole things is not really about the military, it's about the state of education, health, and crime for the youth in Pittsburgh. I'm glad that some are shocked about the stats, for it means that your reality does not reflect this report. That's good news for those of us thinking about raising our kids in Pittsburgh...

[ditchdigger]

Ya know, I'll swear on a stack of Sgt. Fury/Sgt. Rock comic books that I'm just as red-blooded American as all the other kids my age, but having grown older and hopefully a little wiser, I'd a whole lot sooner see some think tank coming up with a scheme to raise a generation of kids smart enough to avoid the need to go to war...

[greg42]

Originally Posted by west seattle gal

However, this whole things is not really about the military, it's about the state of education, health, and crime for the youth in Pittsburgh. I'm glad that some are shocked about the stats, for it means that your reality does not reflect this report. That's good news for those of us thinking about raising our kids in Pittsburgh...

It's not about that at all though. These people are pushing the readiness; that's their agenda.

From what has been stated here in the thread so far, the crime stats they used are adult stats, not youth. The health stats are also adult stats. So the idea that this paints a reasonable picture of the status of these things individually about the city is a stretch. I thought I mentioned this fairly clearly in my previous longer post. To be more direct: I have seen nothing yet to suggest this is useful info in deciding whether or not to move to this area. You'd be better off reading the weather arguments!

[SteelCityRising]

I never had a "choice" in taking the ASVAB. Our high school required us to take it, and I never knew that I should have intentionally flopped it in order to avoid the constant phone harassment by recruiters.