Lessons from Military-Run Schools: America’s Secret Weapon in Education

In recent decades, some Americans have become enthralled with the idea of emulating the educational institutions of far-away nations—of adopting Finnish, German, Swiss, Singaporean, or South Korean systems of education. Faced with the shortcomings of our own system, they resort to tired references to Scandinavia and Southeast Asia, to saying “We should be doing the same!” as Bernie Sanders declared in 2015. 

Yet, nestled in these supposedly “model” countries, there is a small contingency of American pupils, attending transplanted American schools, with educational outcomes on par with or better than their local counterparts. Indeed, the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), in 2011, became the first U.S. district to surpass Finland in international math metrics. In fact, these students and schools outperformed the Nordic nations and every anglophone system besides Singapore—and they have steadily improved since. 

The DoDEA school system—serving 106,000 military-connected children in 224 schools across 14 countries and seven states—is home to both unprecedented educational hurdles, and the best schooling in America. For instance, DoDEA students relocate six-to-nine times before graduating, yet they boast an unrivaled 97 percent graduation rate. Although the vast majority of their parents only have a high school degree, 85 percent of DoDEA students enroll in college and 87 percent meet College Board honor-roll standards—compared to 60 percent and 19 percent nationally. These students, half of whom live at the poverty line, are also the run-away leaders in NAEP scores. 

Moreover, despite an exceptionally diverse student portfolio, achievement gaps that persist nationwide are dramatically narrower—or disappear entirely—in the DoDEA system. This, despite the added challenges of staffing these remote schools, of emotional stress on students whose parents are deployed, or even of running a school district that spans 11 time zones. 

What is occurring at these DoDEA schools on NAEP test day, on College Board exams, and at graduation is no miracle, though; it is the product of an effective school district. For one, DoDEA schools are spared the usually tumultuous local politics since they report directly to the federal government. Since the “One DoDEA” initiative in 2014, these schools benefit from a cohesive, streamlined chain-of-command under the Department of Defense (DoD). Their mission is not subject to the whims of local school boards or teachers’ unions, nor is it incessantly redefined by ideological swings and the experimental programs du-jour. 

Rather, DoDEA’s mission to “educate, engage, and empower” is enforced directly by the DoD and Congress—who insist on high performance—and by an unparalleled catalogue of educational standards. These standards start with faculty. The DoDEA’s hiring practices are among the most stringent in the nation—65 percent of faculty hold Master’s Degrees. As one teacher remarked, “the entire faculty has to be on board that all kids can achieve” and are routinely “held accountable” to this. Teachers undergo a professional growth program and their performance is assessed using the Annual Summative Rating system. DoDEA teachers are either exceptional or—if rated otherwise—released. 

These expectations extend to students. Starting in the early 2010s, as the Common Core State Standards took effect, the DoDEA had other, more rigorous, plans. Its College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) explicitly reject conventional, “superficial” approaches to content; they stress absolute “fluency”. Today, in many cases, DoDEA students must outperform the top third of their Common Core peers just to be considered “meeting expectations”. 

One DoDEA teacher professed, “We are not satisfied with average. We want students to go higher.” In order to, as another educator put it, “get all students up to the highest level,” they administer more tests than any other U.S. school system. 

As for their curriculum, content is deliberately uniform—and consistently rigorous—across schools. Whether in Hawaii or Germany, students are exposed to high-level content, sometimes a full year ahead of their peers. Crucially, it also features a strong liberal arts presence; science, history, and even technical classes include reading of discipline-specific texts and writing about them. 

The DoDEA’s CCRS also paid special attention to math, where they were lagging relative to reading scores. In the years since, average math-proficiency on the NAEP has fallen four percentage-points—it increased by five points at the DoDEA. Ultimately, and as Vanderbilt’s comprehensive study remarked, teachers, principals, and parents “speak in mission language—every child must meet the objective.” The data shows that they often exceed it. 

This is true not just of academics, but of DoDEA students’ character more generally. The same Vanderbilt researchers concluded that “discipline problems…are almost non-existent.” When problems escalate, they are adjudicated by the military chain of command, a firm deterrent. Indeed, the DoDEA’s exemplary school culture is largely informed by the surrounding military culture—a combination of discipline and comradery. Teachers often liken these schools, their colleagues, and their students to “extended family.” 

In our modern discourse around education, a growing many are, as I mentioned, clamoring for us to emulate foreign education systems. They are not the only plaintiffs, though. Some have simply condemned the American liberal arts. Others, like former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, insist that we ought to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at dysfunctional schools, in hopes that they will miraculously be “renewed.” Still others still believe that traditional rigor is “oppressive” and reinforces “trauma,” and that it should be ditched altogether. 

American K-12 education is in trouble, but these popular suggestions and fads are hurting, not helping. Instead, the DoDEA shows us that American systems are capable, that a good liberal arts education works wonders, that funding is not the end-all and be-all, and that disadvantaged students thrive—not falter—in the presence of high-expectations. The DoDEA embraces the holy trinity of secondary education: student standards measured by testing, teacher competency measured by outcomes, and rigorous curriculum. 

As another DoDEA teacher put it, “If you really want to make a difference, you attack the problem—and we know how to attack low achievement.” Indeed, this oft-forgotten school district, for all its challenges, is already well on its way to cracking the educational code—most are still stuck recycling random combinations. 

 

Sam Davis is a Roger Perry Education Intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a rising sophomore at the University of Chicago, with a double major in Political Science and Philosophy.