Army Secretary Noel Harvey and Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff, said Monday that the Army is using looser Defense Department rules that permits it to sign up more high school dropouts and people who score lower on mental-qualification tests, but they denied that this meant it was lowering standards.

It sounds like they are lowering standards at face value, and you'll probably see a lot of news services slanting the story that way. But lets put it in context:

The Department of Defense "standards on qualification tests call for at least 60 percent Category 1 to 3 [the higher end of testing] and 4 percent Category 4," the lowest end, Harvey said. "The other services follow that standard and the Army National Guard always followed it as well. But the active Army chose a standard of 67 percent in Categories 1-3, and 2 percent Category 4." It now will use the Defense Department guidelines.

When you see that, it makes more sense. The Army has always had strict requirements and all branches use harder requirements when they have too many recruits. It makes sense to relax those standards to those set by the DoD when you need more recruits.

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