President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act is often criticized for lack of funding. Now you can add the military's recruitment of high school students to what ails the law, coming perilously close to pseudo-draft legislation.
The Buffalo News reported Thursday that freshmen attending Hutch-Tech were automatically enrolled in the school's Junior ROTC program, unless they opted out. The problem for some parents was the letter they were supposed to receive giving them that option never came. Students' and parents' complaints and objections alike whittled an initial enrollment of about 190 students down to 157. Critics have termed the program a "renegade recruitment operation," and the New York Civil Liberties Union is demanding an immediate halt to the practice.
The dispute centers on a provision in the federal No Child Left Behind Act that links federal funding for high schools to the accessibility of student lists for military recruiters. The law also requires parents to have the option of taking their children off such lists if they wish. The problem is that New York State has a conflicting law that says a student has to volunteer entry into any Junior ROTC program, with a letter from their parent or guardian giving consent. The state law makes clear that parents and students must enroll into a school's Junior ROTC program, not the other way around.
It is ridiculous to enroll high school students into mandatory military teaching. Will it become part of the curriculum, taught along side English and math? The fact that Junior RTOC only exists in Buffalo's inner city public schools - four others have programs as well - and not in the outlying suburbs is controversial to begin with. Indoctrinating young minds on the taxpayers' dime as the military subsidizes less than half of the program's cost is a waste of money. The class also serves as a feeder program for the ROTC and the military, and that smells like an underhanded draft.
It seems as though Hutch-Tech's principal, who is a strong supporter of the Junior ROTC, has allowed his personal convictions to override the constraints imposed on the program by the state. He says he's done nothing wrong because the students who wanted out were eventually allowed to leave. That explanation is disingenuous because students were enrolled in mandatory military classes and the onus was placed on them to leave. It infringes on their rights, and leaves one to wonder what's coming next. Will students be enlisted in the military automatically, with the burden on them to withdraw?
The military exists for waging war and defending a country. A fringe benefit is the money enlistees can earn for college. Ultimately those who join are expected to die for their country when called upon. A high school in Baltimore is currently coping with the deaths of two alumni, former Junior ROTC members, who were killed in Iraq. It has led the school to reexamine its policies involving the military on their campus. And that is the point: no matter how much the military frames the class as promoting citizenship, it is there to recruit bodies into the service. And learning about being a good citizen doesn't mean anything when one finds oneself in a war zone.
