A New School for Brats: Improving the K-12 Education of Military Connected Children

This thesis answers the question: How can recent changes in the educational environment be leveraged to improve K-12 education for military-connected children? In 2011, the Obama Administration issued a report, Strengthening Our Military Families, in which the president, the vice president, and every member of the president’s cabinet committed to ensuring the well-being of military families, including the education of military-connected children. This study examines the current American public school system and its reliance on the traditional factory-based education model to determine the system’s efficacy in educating military-connected children, a student population with unique academic, social, physical, and psychological challenges. Rather than depending on the traditional education model to educate military-connected children, this study recommends the implementation of a competency-based personalized learning model--strengthened by technology--within an expanded domestic network of the United States Department of Defense Education Activity to improve the K-12 education of military-connected children.