From Draft NOtices, January-March 2023
- Rick Jahnkow
A recent series of articles in the New York Times has drawn attention to some of the most egregious features of high school JROTC that are being protested by critics of militarism in the educational system. Included in the series is a December 11, 2022, front-page exposé of schools involuntarily enrolling students in the military training program, and then making it difficult for them to transfer out.
To write the article, journalist Mike Baker and other Times associates collected enrollment data using over 200 records requests sent to schools around the country. The data revealed the following:
[Dozens] of schools have made the program mandatory or steered more than 75% of students in a single grade into the classes, including schools in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and Mobile, Alabama.
It was also noted in the article that, “a vast majority of the schools with those high enrollment numbers were attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households.”
In Chicago recently, the public school system acknowledged that automatic enrollment in JROTC was a significant issue. The school district’s inspector general issued a report concluding that it was a problem experienced disproportionately in lower-income neighborhoods. The report also revealed that over the past two years, nearly all ninth graders at 10 Chicago high schools were automatically enrolled in JROTC while procedures for opting out of the program were not clearly communicated with students and parents.
JROTC is in approximately 3500 high schools around the U.S. The military courses are taught by retired military officers hired by the schools, using textbooks produced by and for the various military branches (see past issues of Draft NOtices for textbook excerpts that were compiled in 2021 by Project YANO). Though the military claims it is not a recruiting program, advocates of the program have told Congress that it is the military’s best in-school recruiting program. In one recent example, during his 2019 congressional testimony, Secretary of the Army Mark Esper acknowledged that JROTC “tends to . . . encourage kids to join the military at higher rates than anywhere else.”
San Diego Unified was one of the school districts identified in the NY Times piece as having at least some schools where over 70% of students in a particular grade were in JROTC. This is despite the fact that, in 2008, a very vocal and public student-led campaign secured promises from the district that the practice of involuntary JROTC enrollment would cease. At that time, then-Superintendent Terry B. Grier issued a memorandum stating that no student should be placed in the class “without first obtaining fully informed consent from the student AND a parent or guardian of the student.” Grier’s memo acknowledged that this was necessary under California Education Code section 51750, which says, “No student . . . shall be required to enroll in any course in military science and tactics.”
Often, schools allow students to use JROTC to satisfy a physical education graduation requirement. Some of these schools are under-funding their PE programs, which results in counselors packing JROTC with students who never requested the class. These districts often justify it by alleging that a partial federal subsidy provided for JROTC instructor salaries makes it less costly than hiring PE teachers. In fact, however, an accurate examination of the funding arrangement shows that it is more costly than PE. This is because the JROTC contract requires hiring two instructors for the first 100-150 students, and another instructor for each additional increment of 100 students; whereas, a single PE teacher supports an average of 250 students.
Community activists in San Diego are now discussing a new campaign to demand school board action to boost PE funding and put an end to involuntary JROTC enrollment. People in San Diego wishing to help, especially parents, students and school personnel, should send an email to Project YANO at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. People residing in other California school districts with JROTC are encouraged to investigate whether local students are being involuntarily enrolled in the class.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/).
