Armed With a GED

After completing their daily physical training, soldiers enrolled in the Army Preparatory School in Columbia, S.C., await instructions before marching to breakfast. Since the school began this fall, nearly all the recruits in the experimental program have passed the tests needed to earn a GED credential, usually in just three weeks. Amid widespread concern about the high school dropout rate, some civilian educators are taking an interest in the school’s approach to accelerated academic remediation.

—BrettFlashnick.com for Education Week

No iPods. No cellphones. No MySpace or Facebook. And always a sergeant around to keep things in check. No wonder the Army Preparatory School is working.

By Scott J. Cech

Columbia, S.C.

This is not your average classroom.

All of the 15 students in the English class Christin M. Bradshaw is teaching on a late-October afternoon are dressed identically in desert fatigues and combat boots. All the young men have uniform buzz cuts. Outside, there is the faint popping of distant rifle practice and the shouted commands of drill sergeants marching platoons of soldiers in lock step.

This is, after all, a classroom on an active-duty military installation—part of the 4-month-old pilot Army Preparatory School here at Fort Jackson, the U.S....