Because they did not learn enough in school, 300,000 young potential recruits each year flunk the armed forces' simple aptitude tests. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara partly blames civilian teachers who not only failed to impart knowledge, but sent students into "a mental fog of boredom, confusion and noncomprehension." He thinks that the stripped-down, highly functional, systems-analyzed teaching techniques of Defense Department schools can reach these kids, and he expects to "salvage" 100,000 of them a year.
When McNamara, with typical abruptness, last month announced rather than proposed this program, congressional critics complained that...