The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Is Not a Substitute for Education

Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps students wait to enter a Veteran's Day Parade on November 11, 2009. (Photo: Katie Spence) Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps students wait to enter a Veteran’s Day Parade on November 11, 2009. (Photo: Katie Spence)

Delving into the underbelly of the US military, longtime antiwar activist Pat Elder reveals how military recruiters are assisted by the Department of Education, the film industry, the video game industry and mainstream media in order to fuel never-ending war — using the country’s most vulnerable young people as fodder. Get the book Military Recruiting in the United States by donating to Truthout now!

In the following excerpt from Military Recruiting in the United States, Pat Elder discusses how many states allow Army instructors to replace teachers in “educating students.”

The Army is specifically asking schools to allow its untrained instructors to meet the curricular requirements of physical education, performing arts, practical arts, civics, health, and government within the confines of its Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. Where is the public indignation? Where are the unions? The policy is causing an academic train wreck.

Florida allows JROTC to substitute for physical science, biology, practical arts, and life management skills. For instance, students at Boca Ciega High School in Gulfport, Florida who take JROTC for two years satisfy both the physical education and fine arts requirements for graduation.

It’s deeply troubling that state schools throw the arts under the bus in favor of classes that foster strait-jacketed military indoctrination.

At Spaulding High School in Barre, Vermont, students may satisfy a .5 credit requirement for US government by taking JROTC for a semester. The kids in Vermont may never come to understand the phrase, “We the People.”

It’s the same at Eagleville High School in Eagleville, Tennessee. The Volunteer State provides a glimpse into how the process of accepting JROTC as a legitimate academic course works. In Tennessee students may substitute:

  • Two credits of JROTC for one credit of wellness…

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