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Military Recruitment in Our Schools: What Can School Boards Do to Stop It?
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by Ty Moore
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Photo by kayakbiker |
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Love the soldier, hate the war
More photos - click here - opens new window. |
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In late March, at a closed committee meeting, the St. Paul Board of Education rejected student demands to substantially restrict military recruitment in their schools, citing a series of minor logistical complications.
In an open letter to the board last November, the Central High students explained their case: “The Pentagon is sending more and more of its recruiters into our schools, searching among us for fresh cannon fodder. They are at Central High every week now . . . Youth Against War & Racism (YAWR) believes military recruiters should not be present in school at all, but due to the No Child Left Behind Act, public schools are threatened with loss of federal funding if they enact an outright ban on recruiters. That is why we have launched a new petition drive at school around three demands that, while remaining within the law, will substantially restrict recruiters’ ability to prey on our fellow classmates. We hope you will act rapidly to make the following demands official policy at Central and district-wide.”
The petition demanded an end to military recruiters setting up their elaborate lunch-room tables, instead restricting them to career resource centers; that all student contact with recruiters be supervised to guard against well-documented patterns of dishonesty and misconduct; and that recruiters be prevented from visiting high schools more frequently than colleges.
They collected over 300 student signatures in three weeks, and at the board’s December 20th meeting, over 60 YAWR students and supporters, carrying signs reading “Demilitarize Our Schools,” packed the public comment section with powerful testimony against military recruitment in schools. However, after two months of “investigations,” the board rejected all our main demands.
The board’s decision is clearly a setback. On the other hand, it has been a valuable education in the way official politics work (or do not work!). There is overwhelming opposition in this country to the Iraq War, and if put to a vote in St. Paul, there is little doubt that YAWR’s demands to restrict military recruitment in schools would be supported. But as in Congress, so also in the St. Paul Board of Education—fear of rocking the boat with a clear antiwar stand is deemed politically risky.
School board elections
Several Green Party members and others have approached us in the last weeks, suggesting we explore finding candidates to run for the four open Board of Education seats in November. The idea is exciting but, aside from the logistical hurdles, a deeper set of questions are raised. What kind of candidates—and what kind of school board—do we want?
Our experience with the current board raises serious concerns. Few of us would support candidates who, like most current board members, give lip service to our concerns on military recruitment but refuse to take a determined stand against the use of our schools as recruiting stations for this horrific, unjust war.
The St. Paul Board of Education members went about the entire discussion in a galling business-as-usual manner. There was no sense of indignation over the economic blackmail contained in the No Child Left Behind law, allowing Pentagon employees to roam our schools promoting a criminal war based on naked lies. The board showed no moral outrage over students being recruited into a war where one in five return with post-traumatic stress disorder, were one in three women soldiers are sexually assaulted, and where youth are asked to subjugate and kill another people in order to steal their oil.
Even board member Ann Carroll, who at first supported our demands and met separately with students to coach them on their presentations, strongly emphasized removing anything “political” in their statements. Military recruitment in schools was to be treated simply as a local logistical issue, as if it had nothing to do with the U.S. war machine, which, in the still-true words of Martin Luther King, is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
Hiding behind the false idea that school boards have no voice in national policy, that political neutrality is the responsible approach, the board’s casual rejection of our demands is no surprise.
St. Paul vs. George W. Bush
Last fall, when YAWR activists and supporters were discussing our campaign tactics, we considered simply calling on the board to enact an outright ban on military recruitment in schools, in open defiance of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. NCLB forces schools to provide the Pentagon nearly unfettered access to students on pain of losing federal funds.
We made a tactical decision at the time to limit our demands to restrictions within the law. But maybe now it is time, with the board elections coming up, to revisit the idea of demanding an outright ban. Does the threat of losing federal funding make such a campaign a lost cause? Not at all! Like other unjust laws in history, NCLB can be broken and defeated under the impact of a mass mobilization.
Imagine if a new St. Paul board elected in November publicly committed to challenging the economic blackmail of No Child Left Behind. Imagine if they took the bold step of ending military recruitment in our schools. All across the country, millions of students, parents, teachers, and community members are outraged at Bush’s war in Iraq and the growing presence of recruiters in schools. These groups and individuals could be rallied to our support and inspired to launch similar campaigns to ban recruitment in school districts across the country.
Especially with the Republican National Convention coming to our town, the political room for Bush to retaliate by cutting off federal funds to our schools would be limited. Such a move would be met with a storm of popular outrage, locally and nationally.
In this context, with the national spotlight focused on our standoff, YAWR and the broader antiwar movement could organize mass student strikes and demonstrations of tens of thousands. In this David vs. Goliath story, a firm and determined
St. Paul Board of Education, who skillfully linked their stand against the war with demands for redistributing Pentagon money toward education and the social needs of youth, could prevail over a weakened White House.
Social movement candidates?
Unfortunately, current members of the board will no doubt view this political approach as little more than the silly dreaming of a young radical, far from the realm of political possibility. Such sourness reveals the awful deficit of political courage, the lack of a vision for real change that afflicts our sick nation.
Are there any candidates who will position themselves as the political voice of the antiwar movement and represent wider struggles for youth rights and education funding? Will any candidate publicly embrace the youth protest movement, the walkouts and direct actions, and utilize their campaign to help promote our grassroots struggles for a peaceful, just future?
Unless we have real social movement candidates running for office, don’t expect most young people to pay much attention to board elections. But maybe, as our social movement grows, the resources and room for expanding into the political arena are growing too. Maybe there is already space for the Twin Cities counter-recruitment movement, in coalition with Greens or other progressive groups, to run candidates this fall for the board. Anyone interested? Then get in touch!
Ty Moore has been active in the Twin Cities antiwar movement since he moved here in 2002. In 2004 he helped several high school students launch Youth Against War & Racism. He is currently a staff organizer with Socialist Alternative and helps edit their publication, Justice.
tytymo@gmail.com or 612-760-1980. YAWR’s website is www.yawr.org |
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The Cost of War
If President Bush’s fiscal-year 2008 budget plan is fulfilled, total Pentagon spending will grow to $623 billion—an all-time record. Total military spending by the rest of the world’s nations combined is about $700 billion.
At least 18 environmental programs will see their budgets reduced by a total of $2.6 billion. That will undercut efforts to improve water quality, clean up toxic wastes, improve energy efficiency, and much more.
At least 14 educational programs will be slashed to the tune of $6.5 billion. They include such popular programs as LEAP, Head Start, Even Start, school safety, Pell scholarships, and vocational training.
The money “saved” by slashing the environmental budget will pay for a day and a half of occupation. “Savings” from the cuts in education programs will pay for less than four days in Iraq.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq have cost American taxpayers an average of about $3750 per U.S. family so far.
Here’s what that has bought us:
Almost 3300 U.S. troops have died. The Pentagon estimates that 24,000 U.S. troops have been seriously wounded, but that includes only those directly injured by combat. The total casualties are much higher. 2733 American children have lost a parent in Iraq.
The number of Iraqi civilian deaths from violence is unknown; estimates range as high as 600,000, with the total sure to be well into the hundreds of thousands. A minimum of 1.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes. 1.6 million US troops have done a tour of duty in Iraq so far. Of those, more than 500,000 veterans of the war will be afflicted by mental disorders or psychological problems.
—Stan Cox, for Counterpunch, 4/17/07, www.counterpunch.org
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© 2007 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete May 2007 Index - click here
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