With law enforcement, the good shooters continue to get and stay good. The bad ones continue to stay bad or get worse. As with most things in life, there are exceptions, but it is rare that I see them.
What I mean by this, is that somebody that passed the academy firearms program with a 90% or better score will likely be somebody that goes shooting on their own, goes shooting with friends, takes classes, and any opportunity their agency affords them to shoot more, they will take. This is somebody that will show up to their annual/semi-annual qualification and pass everything easily on the first attempt. It is also somebody that the firearms instructors won't have to spend much time with, if any.
The opposite is definitely the opposite. The person that struggled to pass, who barely scraped by with a 70%, will likely do no practice on their own. If offered optional time to go shooting at the range, they'll have other obligations that will cause them to beg off. If they are given mandatory additional practice sessions due to their poor performance, they may call in sick on those days. If they do show up, they'll do their level best to joke around and not put in much effort. When it comes to their qualification dates, they'll typically avoid going until the last possible date, and they certainly won't put any prior preparation into trying to do better for the date they pick. Once they arrive, they'll typically bomb right out of the gate and then have to come back the next day for remedial and additional attempts. They may continue this cycle for days until they manage to scrape by with a passing score, which will certainly cause the range staff to say many hallelujahs until the next time they have to deal with that individual. Individuals like this, while being awful shooters, will invariably soak up 99% of all of the instructors' time. The instructors don't get much opportunity to help good shooters become better. They definitely get lots of opportunity to drag awful shooters across the 70% line.
I have no great fix for any of this, but I have noted some observations. Momentum is a thing, both positive and negative. It can last for a short time or an entire career. Shooting being one subset of this, but certainly a critical one in the law enforcement world. If I could, I would get every new candidate on a positive trajectory that showed them a lot of success up front, that would then in turn give them some positive dopamine hit and get them wanting to do more and better every time.
Unfortunately most law enforcement firearms training programs aren't set up to be fun, and therefore they often create a negative feedback loop. Once you convince somebody that shooting guns isn't fun, getting them out of that mindset is damn close to impossible. When somebody is set well and truly on this path, they just continue to eke out sub-par or mediocre performances on the range. And if it takes every single bit of somebody's mental effort just to pass with a 70%, I don't typically have a lot of confidence in their ability to shoot in the real world where they'll also have to contend with communicating, using cover, maneuvering, possibly having to use lighting, and even applying first aid to themselves or others, all while having to manage a complicated and rapidly evolving situation.
I have some thoughts on how to make initial firearms training more rewarding to new recruits, but I am going to have to get it going quite gently. I also have to pick verbiage that will be politically palatable to the higher ups, because I can't spin it as "fun." Call it what you will, but I have to make it so that the recruits won't hate the work, and that may be difficult. I write this as I'm conceiving the drill card/outline for the next session.
I should also confess that my current pass rate is quite good. Most sessions I lose no recruits due to firearms score failure. But the pass rate isn't the only metric I care about. I suspect it is the only pass rate that the higher ups care about. I want the highest scores possible, but I also want satisfaction in the students, so that hopefully they'll continue to practice, train, and improve.
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