Tribune exposes ROTC lies
October 16, 2007
Dear Editor,
We applaud Stephanie Banchero’s Oct. 15 Chicago Tribune article (“Reading, Writing, Recruiting?”) for drawing attention to the increasing shift in Chicago’s public schools — from a civilian function, to a military role.
As faculty members who prepare educators to teach in Chicago’s schools, we know that Chicago's students hope for skills and opportunities. Instead of preparing all students to enter college and find satisfying employment, the city’s administration is directing them to the armed forces.
As Banchero noted, Chicago has the largest JROTC program in the nation, and leads the nation in the establishment of Department of Defense run public high schools, where students study subjects like military history and enlist after graduation at rates as high as 40 percent, according to the Chicago Public Schools’ JROTC website. Lt. Colonel Rick Mills, the head of JROTC programs and military-school initiatives, has stated that he soon expects to see a military school in each of the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) six regions. This dramatic educational policy, implemented by our unelected school board, is not supported by any research that demonstrates that these schools will prepare children for college or good jobs.
Arne Duncan, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, echoing the consumer-centered rhetoric of the No Child Left Behind Act, supports military schools as “choices” for students and families. However, by offering a second-rate education, military public schools leave all their children behind.
These Department of Defense run schools enroll predominately low-income families of color. Like Arne Duncan, we believe that public educational policy makers should be “thinking out of the box,” but they should not be preparing our city’s black and brown children to return to Chicago in a box.
For a “global city,” this policy decision that results in explicit public tracking is more than an embarrassment. It rejects the primary civilian function of public education in a democracy — preparing our city’s children to be citizens, parents, workers, and thinkers, not soldiers. We know this city can do better. And it must. We call for an immediate moratorium on the establishment of any Department of Defense run military public schools in Chicago, and ask Mayor Daley to establish a taskforce to assess the quality of the existing Department of Defense run public schools.
- Erica R. Meiners (Associate Professor, Educational Leadership & Development, Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 N St. Louis Ave, Chicago IL 60625, (773) 816 6561, meiners@neiu.edu
- Therese Quinn Assistant Professor, Art Education, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 37 S. Wabash Avenue, Rm. 713R Chicago IL 60603, (312) 629-9186, tquinn@saic.edu.
