Mandatory writing test for NCOs to launch Oct. 1

Beginning Oct. 1, all soldiers and noncommissioned officers preparing to attend an NCO professional military education course will be required to take an English comprehension and writing assessment.

The move is part of the Army’s ongoing effort to sharpen its education courses and develop better leaders.

A pilot underway right now with Basic Leader Course students, most of whom are specialists seeking promotion to sergeant, showed that about 75 percent of those assessed need additional help or coaching. More than 12,000 BLC students have taken the assessment.

“What we’ve found was that they have writing skills, but they could improve to a level that would be comparable to a first-year college student,” said Liston Bailey, chief of learning initiatives and innovations for Training and Doctrine Command’s Institute of NCO Professional Development. “A lot of the young men and women come in, and their writing skills are not polished. They don’t necessarily have the skills to write about and defend their ideas, or how to support an argument, let’s say.”

The goal isn’t to make soldiers more like college students. Instead, it’s to gradually improve their writing abilities, Bailey said.

“Communication is a most vital aspect of leadership, and as an NCO matures, they need to be able to speak and write with authority, to counsel subordinates in writing, and to analyze and describe how to fix problems,” Bailey said.

The Army’s new NCO Evaluation Report also contains a narrative portion, requiring senior NCOs to have solid writing abilities so they can properly evaluate their subordinates, he said.

“That’s why we need good writing competencies and skills across the NCO cohort,” Bailey said.
For now, only soldiers attending the Basic Leader Course, formerly known as the Warrior Leader Course, are being required to take the writing assessment. Bailey anticipates more than 18,000 students will have taken the assessment by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Beginning Oct. 1, all NCO academies, including the Sergeants Major Academy, will start offering the assessment. TRADOC last week sent a tasking to NCO academies across the Army, calling on them to start preparing to administer the assessment. About 97,000 soldiers attend NCO professional military education courses each year, Bailey said.

“It will be mandatory that the schools participate in this initiative,” Bailey said. “If a school hosts NCO professional military education, then it’s something they must do.”
The Army has learned enough from its ongoing Basic Leader Course pilot to decide to expand the assessment to all levels of NCO education, he said.

“We think now’s the time to expand it to all levels of NCO education,” Bailey said, adding that at 69 cents per assessment, the program is not expensive.

Taking the assessment will help NCOs become more aware of their writing abilities, he said.

“It promotes self-awareness and understanding of their level of communication skills as far as English composition, writing and the expression of ideas.”

The English comprehension and writing assessment began in 2015 with a 500-soldier pilot. The pilot, which also involved students attending the Basic Leader Course, ran last spring at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Fort Hood, Texas, Camp Williams, Utah, and Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, California.

On the first day of class, students were asked to write an essay. In that case, soldiers were given about 45 minutes to write an essay about peer pressure.
The pilot was then expanded to the current test, which targets all Basic Leader Course students.

Of the roughly 75 percent of soldiers who were found to need additional help or coaching, most of the shortfalls had to do with grammar, spelling and punctuation, Bailey said. Many also struggled with organization.

“That’s what we really want to get after,” he said. “Can you organize your thoughts?”