Education infiltration: the Pentagon targets high schools.

• Author: Rocawich, Linda
• Position: Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Career Academies - Cover Story

Problem: "America lags far behind in meeting its educational goals, and the quality of education in our country is below standard."

Question: How can the Federal Government "support local [school] districts in offering at-risk youth a new opportunity to be successful in school and thus in life"?

Solution: Send in the Marines. And the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Double the number of high schools offering kids a chance to train with the military in Junior ROTC. And experiment with "career academies," special little military schools within the schools, for "at-risk youth." Teach them "discipline and life skills." Keep them busy and off the streets.

At least that's the "Campaign Plan" of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) Cadet Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia, dated July 1, 1993 - an unclassified but not widely known document that describes in detail the Army's plan for Junior ROTC Career Academies. The other services have similar plans.

Now that the Cold War is over, what's the military to do? At the Pentagon, no one really wants to downsize the services - or cut the budget much. Downsizing is taking place, though. Bases are closing, the middle-management ranks of officers are shrinking. College-level ROTC is becoming a shadow of its former self

But under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Les Aspin who, just before resigning, approved a plan for "nontraditional" military efforts, the armed services are moving into the high schools in a major way. They'll be counseling troubled teenagers and offering inner-city schools large grants to set up military academies.

Part of the program is simply a doubling of Junior ROTC, which has been with us for years. The current list of 1,500 high schools nationwide with Junior ROTC programs is slated to grow to 3,000 by the year 1997.

But another - more alarming - part would put the military in control of special programs in certain "target schools."

Each "target school" - the most recent list numbers thirty - will get, or already has, a "career academy." All students attending the academy sign up for Junior ROTC and take the standard military training offered to all high-school members of the corps. But they also spend the rest of their day together, taking their math and science, history and English, and vocational training, from military retirees who have spent at least twenty years in the armed forces and who are paid by the Department of Defense and the local school district. Other Federal funds for the career academies, some from defense reconversion funds and some from Education Department funds supposedly for educational demonstration projects, are administered by the Pentagon.

Only a handful of activists scattered around the country, in cities where the Pentagon has targeted a school, is paying attention. In many such cities, there is no opposition - or public awareness - at all.

If we're really interested in helping kids, why should we do it through the military?" asks Harold Jordan, coordinator of the National Youth and Militarism Program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). I have a problem with the content of what is taught, the lack of control over instructors and curriculum, and the message it puts forth. We're trying to teach young people to make their own decisions and...