To its supporters, JROTC — the Junior Reserve Officers
Training Corps — is a valuable elective, teaching students discipline and
responsibility. To its critics, it is a marketing opportunity for the Pentagon,
designed to entice urban, principally minority high-school students into
signing up for the military. And, they say, it teaches violence as a problem
solver.
Critics and supporters are expected to present those
arguments at the Rochester School Board’s next meeting, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 15, at the district’s
central-office building, 131 West Broad Street.
Although the board is not considering any plan to change the district’s JROTC program,
critics — including Rochester Against War — have been questioning the
program’s benefits since November.
Similar challenges related to the military have been
successful. For example, following public protests, the board voted last year to
notify parents more clearly about their right to withhold student information
from military recruiters. But JROTC has strong support among School Board
members and school administrators.
The JROTC program is available to publicly funded school
districts throughout the country. The program curriculum and textbooks are
designed by the Pentagon, and programs are administered by all four branches of
the military using retired officers as instructors. District participation is voluntary,
but the federal government does provide partial funding.
More than 300 students are involved in JROTC in Rochester,
the only school district in MonroeCounty
that offers the program. At EastHigh
School, the program is administered by the Navy; at
Edison Tech and Marshall, by the Army. The program costs the district nearly a
quarter of a million dollars annually.
Critics of JROTC question why the district is paying for
students to learn to march in military formations and conduct drills. Kathy
Castania and Peter Debes, whose three children graduated from city schools, say
JROTC teaches a militaristic curriculum that encourages violence as a way to
resolve conflicts. It’s the job of teachers and administrators to find alternative
ways to motivate students, they say. Castania and Debes will be at next week’s
School Board meeting, as will other members of Rochester Against War.
“We believe that the school district shouldn’t be putting
money into this program,” says Castania. “To know that our tax dollars are
going toward something that contributes to violence at a time when our young
people are hurting and seeing so much violence just doesn’t make sense.”
And, she says, becoming a soldier shouldn’t be presented as
a career choice in the same way that medicine and engineering is presented.
“If you look at the textbooks and review the curriculum,”
she says, “they are clearly designed to plant the impression in the minds of
these students that the military is a career option.”
As for JROTC teaching positive skills like accepting
responsibility and following instructions: there are other ways to teach those skills,
she says.
“If anything, we need free thinkers,” she says. “We need
young people to respect authority, of course. We have laws. But that doesn’t
mean they should be wholly responsive to authority. The argument that this is
the only way to instill model citizenry doesn’t hold up for me.”
But JROTC supporters argue that the program has many strengths, and that it isn’t oriented solely to
the military.
“They have all kinds of activities, but the one that
probably takes up most of their time is community service,” says East Principal
Kathleen Lamb. “They help out at Food Link and other community organizations
and charities, and they really enjoy it. They develop communications skills and
form positive relationships. And they take it very seriously. I have to say
that they are my model students. They have better attendance, better GPAs, and
better relationships with their teachers. I couldn’t say enough positive things
about them.”
Marshall Principal Joseph Muno agrees. “They really take
pride in the competitions,” he says, “and I think competition is good. They
have drills and marches that require practice and skill, and when they succeed
they are so thrilled. They really like being part of something, especially when
they are doing something good for others. They were part of the Erie
Canal clean-up days, and they were out there on their Saturday,
their day off, cleaning up trash.”
Following the death of a Marshall
staff member, says Muno, the family requested that the JROTC students be
present during the funeral. “When they performed their duties, I am telling you,
there wasn’t a dry eye in the church,” he says. “Everyone was so proud of
them.”
Having no JROTC program, says Muno, would be a serious
problem. Students look forward to it, and parents are supportive.
“I would have 75 to 80 kids that I would worry about: what’s
going to bring them to school next year?” he says. “For a lot of students, it’s
not math, science, and reading that bring them to school every day. For some
it’s art, music, or sports. For these students, it’s the JROTC. It’s the one
thing that they don’t want to miss. And then we can give them the others once
they are here. But you’ve got to have something that brings them in the door
every day.”
East High Principal Kathleen Lamb says military recruiters
aren’t allowed to use JROTC to make direct contact with students. And, she says,
joining the military is a decision some students make early in their high-school
years, and they should have some guidance in the process.
“The instructors do not push joining the military,” she
says. “And if a student decides to talk to military recruiters, we have
teachers who talk to them after they have talked with the recruiter to try to
offer some objectivity. But you must remember that this is a completely
voluntary program. It’s just one of the electives we offer. Students don’t have
to join the JROTC.”
For JROTC critics, there are broader issues. Among them: discrimination and targeting poor people
for military enlistment.
The school district, says School Board member Shirley
Thompson, teaches diversity, but the US
military has a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that discriminates against gays
and lesbians. And, she says, the fact that the closest JROTC programs to Rochester
are in the Buffalo and Syracuse
school districts shouldn’t be overlooked. Like Rochester, both school districts
have high concentrations of poor minority students.
“Why isn’t the JROTC in the suburban schools? It’s an
appropriate question to ask,” says Thompson.
Thompson has shared her views with fellow board members and
Superintendent Manuel Rivera, but funding for JROTC has been approved for at
least another year.
Among the board members who disagree with Thompson is Willa
Powell, who served in the military for 20 years. Only a small number of Rochester’s
JROTC students go on to enlist in the military, she says. And while she
understands the fear that JROTC could be targeting minority, inner-city
students with fewer options than their suburban counterparts, she says that’s
not what JROTC is doing.
“That is an extremely interesting argument to make, but you
have to know the history of the JROTC,” says Powell. “Truman came up with the
program in the 1950’s, and he was trying to integrate minorities into the
military at that time. To make the argument that now the JROTC is trying to
exploit minorities is interesting, but I don’t think it has merit.”
And, she says, JROTC is an important elective program, one
that is subsidized by the federal government. “It is actually less expensive
for the district than any other credit-bearing elective. It is very
competitive, even when compared to sports programs,” Powell says.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.
