In large measure due to my experience as a kid living overseas, I went into the Foreign Service. In several of my positions, I served as Embassy liaison with the DOD school. Money was always an issue and bargains were always being negotiated. In the countries in which I served, the DOD school existed under the umbrella of the Embassy. Often the school's real property, including the physical plant, was owned by State Dept. due to local laws.

State would have to bargain for what tuition it would pay for its dependents, what DOD would pay for utilities, guards, etc.

I'm not sure 'self-selection' is the right term to be using, btw. The kids certainly didn't 'select' which school they attended. Depending on the country, there might not be any useful alternative as learning a language like Arabic or Turkish for two years of high school was not much of an option.

If you're arguing that the student population was not equivalent to a 'normal' US student population, you might have a point, but it would involve picking and excluding various schools, systems, cities, counties, and even states to make it work.

I honestly believe the success of DoDDs was attributed to a few factors, most already mentioned above. The mix of ethnicities and backgrounds in the military led to a school population that was much more open minded than I've ever experienced here in the States. The teachers were definitely a unique bunch (I can say that as my parents are definitely unique)and were highly dedicated to teaching in often unusual environments. And the military structure that the families adhered to led to a much more respectful student body with a "readiness" to learn. We had the same cliques and teen-age angst dramas, but on a smaller scale and in a more supportive environment.

At this risk of ticking a few people off, I honestly believe that if we had a more militaristic system, maybe we'd have better students turning into more respectful adults. I am a mother and I am not proposing the "take the rod to the child" approach. But if parents were held more accountable for their child's actions, within reason, we'd probably have more involved communities taking part in raising those that will one day care for us.

i disagree with better outcomes. This was not my experience. Also, having different doctors every time you walk in the door creates a situation where some things or missed, or one doctor decides the last doctor's treatment plan was bad-even though things are being managed, but he decides to change everything anyway.

I can say for certain i don't want to be permanently stuck in a medical system like the military's. Thankfully when my daughter was receiving poor and inconsistent treatment at the Navy clinic I had the option of going to an excellent civilian doctor at increased expense, but at least her treatment was better.

If people think we should emulate the military school system, I wonder if that thinking can be extended to the military health care system. After all, the military system is almost fully socialized. You walk in, get treated, and leave. Outcomes are better and costs are lower than the average civilian health care. DoD health as reform model?

I think this is a huge key. It isn't so much "the base commander calling your father" type stuff, but the parent at home saying to the kid "you follow the rules, or you will be in trouble at home" Not to mention that the military by its very nature emphasizes a chain of command and obedience to superiors.

I know from working in the public schools that a lot of parents respond to a teacher telling a parent that their kid is struggling in X areas much of the time the response is that it is a failing in the teacher, a sort of "not my Johnny" response. A good many others don't even bother to return the phone calls. I can't imagine a military member ever failing to respond to a teacher's contact about classroom concerns-and while there are probably a few "not my Johnny" parents in the military I am willing to bet their numbers are smaller.

I will also say that having a standardized and consistent curriculum probably helps-at least with testing. Having a standardized curriculum means consistent coverage of specific concepts-there aren't going to be as many gaps.

The school was in Ankara, Turkey, but pulled boarding students from several countries that did not have DOD-approved schools.

I considered the mix of students to be pretty average. There were really smart kids who went on to really spectacular careers in science, academia, even politics and Hollywood. There were also the screw-ups who did as little as possible and some who did everything they could to be thrown out of the school and consequently the country.

What was very different were the teachers. Most--and there were a few glaring exceptions--were truly dedicated to imparting knowledge, if not wisdom, to their charges. The school had the administrative flexibility to create courses to engage high-achieving students while not ignoring the others. Advanced math, four-year language programs--in things like Turkish and Latin!--and regionally competing sports teams created a pretty solid student body.

One difference from US-based public schools was that teachers were on a fixed contract. It was easy to get rid of the bad ones and they were gone after their first, problem year.

What amazes me to this day is the sense of kinship that developed among the students. Even though my high school graduation was 45 years ago, most of my classmates are still in contact via e-mailing lists. We even managed to have several grand reunions pulling in multi-year graduates (numbering close to 1,000 at the last), as well as smaller, regional mini-reunions.

Almost all of us consider our time in that school to have been good times and critical to our formation as adults. All who wanted, got really good educations. There were jerks, though.

Seems obvious. Run public schools like you run DOD schools.

And exactly wrong, as demonstrated by the rest of the post.

You can estimate average IQs for enlistees from the AFQT scores, which are normed versus a representative national sample of young people. Enlistees average around 105.