I wrote a post yesterday about a local peacenik named Lynda Haynes who is protesting Columbia High School’s JROTC rifle team. I had the opportunity to listen to Ms. Haynes this afternoon on a local talk show. She said, and I kid you not, that high school JROTC programs lead to gangs and violence.

Ms. Haynes, member of the North Alabama Military Hating Peace Network, cited as evidence a website that seeks to undermine our armed forces by encouraging people to go AWOL. The site has a page dedicated to JROTC programs, which includes a link at the top for finding out “if a JROTC unit is coming to your community” as though it a JROTC program is analogous to a posse of child molesters. The site was obviously authored by someone with no real knowledge of JROTC programs and says that “JROTC is the only program in our schools which can be expected to cause deaths and severe casualties among its graduates.” Well, not really Ms. Haynes.

Virtually every high school sport has had a history of students dying while participating. Deaths related to high school football tend to register about five to fifteen per year and 36 died in 1968 alone. And while relatively few high school athletes go on to compete on the college gridiron, and fewer still in the NFL, we still hear about such deaths. One could even argue that Sean Taylor’s murder was the result of the fortune he derived from pro football and therefore the sport played a role in his death. Maybe we should ban football.

The anti-military site given by Ms. Haynes goes on to list a number of unsourced incidents involving individuals affiliated with JROTC. The list includes a “JROTC enthusiast,” which translates into a kid who was not actually in the JROTC program but wore military fatigues. It also includes the terrifying story about how some kids fainted while standing in formation in the hot sun (again, note the football parallel). It even mentions a JROTC instructor who sexually abused female cadets. By that logic maybe we should ban all reading teachers too.

I mentioned that the list of crimes on the anti military site were unsourced. I tried to Google the first one, which was about a gang called the “Fenkell Mafia Killers,” and got no valid hits other than a book that used the anti-military site as a source. But, lets give the kooks the benefit of the doubt and assume all the details are accurate. So what if there are documented cases of kids affiliated with JROTC committing crimes, hazing other cadets, or fainting from heat exhaustion? A very cursory Google search found multiple stories about high school football players committing sexual assaults and even murders. Hazing has long been prevalent in social fraternities (and sports teams). Heat related “injuries” are common in high school sports. Does that mean all these activities are evil and should be banned? NO! Furthermore, the fact that some of the kids involved in the listed crimes participated in JROTC may be ancillary to the crime, not a contributing factor as the military haters would lead you to believe.

I was the battalion commander of my high school’s JROTC program many years ago. I don’t recall any teaching of violence. I do recall leadership instruction and training. I remember performing acts of service. I remember professional instructors who emphasized safety and genuinely cared for the cadets. Most of all I remember seeing the program turn kids - many of whom I might have categorized as “wayward” - into focused, mature individuals eager to make something of themselves. When we trained in hot weather we took great pains to tell cadets to speak up if they felt ill. The extent of our “hazing” was limited to messy activities in which senior and junior cadets equally participated, a mutually enjoyable event that did not involve any intimindation or demeaning actions.

Ms. Haynes thinks that the schools should replace JROTC with “conflict resolution” classes. Let’s be a bit more frank about what Ms. Haynes wants. She loathes our military, she probably views them as baby killers, and would like to weaken it by eliminating a fine source of identifying young, eager, and talented soldiers. I’m an open minded guy and I would like to see if there is some merit to Ms. Haynes’ “conflict resolution” solution. If she is willing, I would like to take up a collection to buy her a ticket to Sudan. Once there she can spearhead efforts to put an end to the genocide there using her conflict resolution skills. When a gang of Janjaweed thugs attepmts to rape her we’ll see how effective her conflict resolution approach is at diffusing that situation.

We live in a dangerous world. We should make every effort to avoid violence as a solution (which by the way is taught in JROTC), but we cannot be so foolish as to rely on passivity as the means of protecting our persons and our property. People like Ms. Haynes should step back and reflect on the fact that people have had to use violence to secure and defend the freedom that allows her to condemn them for their efforts. There are other countries that aren’t so tolerant.

From AL.com:

Harry Hobbs at Columbia High School said he’s heard concern about the school’s new shooting range for student cadets in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

But don’t worry, said Hobbs, a retired Army chief warrant officer and the school’s JROTC chief. Safety is paramount at school shooting ranges, he said.

…

First, to dispel one possible fear, local JROTC programs use single-shot, .177-caliber air rifles, not high-powered rifles. Students use flat-headed pellets, not bullets.

Linda Haynes of the North Alabama Peace Network isn’t convinced school ranges are safe.

“We need to be teaching conflict resolution skills rather than teaching (students) a violent skill, giving them something to commit violence,” Haynes said.

For Haynes, whose group campaigns against war and violence, it’s the idea of teens using guns that’s bothersome. “I’m floored that they’re doing that at that age.”

I wish the school officials would have the stones to just tell Ms. Haynes and her ilk to take a long walk off a short pier. I’d bet a box of doughnuts that she is one of those people who would vote to ban Marines from the area, protest veterans talking to kids, or just look like a general Code Pink idiot.

First of all, how ignorant is she that teenagers might use guns? THIS IS ALABAMA! Many young hunters have made their first kill by the time they get to high school.

Really, the kids are learning conflict resolution. Some of them might join the armed forces one day, refine the skills they learn at Columbia, and resolve a military conflict by killing some bad guys.

I was in JROTC at my high school and was friends with everyone on our rifle team. It was a great extra curricular activity for them and they all took safety (as well as success) very seriously.

Not to mention another example of judicial insanity.

In 2003 a government school in Arizona strip searched a 13 year-old honors student with “no history of disciplinary trouble or drug problems.” Why? Because they thought she had ibuprofen. I’m not making this up.

The details are just outlandish. Officials caught a girl with ibuprofen and one nonprescription naproxen tablet (it’s a pain reliever that, among other things, is used to reduce menstrual cramp pain). She claimed that she got the pills from a girl named Savana. Naturally, the school’s vice principal “instructed a female secretary to strip-search Savana under the school nurse’s supervision, without even bothering to contact the girl’s mother.” (Emphasis mine) Seems reasonable.

Unbelievably, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the search was perfectly acceptable and did not violate the 4th Amendment rights of this 13 year-old girl. This is the same court which ruled in 2002 that compelling students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance violated their constitutional rights. So to summarize: forcing kids to say the Pledge is bad, strip searching them with scant probable cause is just fine.

Kudos to Rob.

John Stossel wrote a piece on the recent California judge’s decision making some homeschool parents criminals that starts out with a foreboding quote.

The cat is finally out of the bag. A California appellate court, ruling that parents have no constitutional right to homeschool their children, pinned its decision on this ominous quotation from a 47-year-old case, “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train schoolchildren in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

There you have it; a primary purpose of government schools is to train schoolchildren “in loyalty to the state.”

Silly me! Here I was thinking the government schools were supposed to, I don’t know, teach children about academic subjects. But no, according to this judge the primary purposes include teaching patriotism and loyalty to the state. I can’t imagine why thoughtful parents wouldn’t be eager to send their kids to a government run indoctrination center.

According to the Huntsville Times, the Huntsville government school board is forming a committee to suggest which schools should be closed.

The committee includes Mayor Loretta Spencer, business leaders and educators who will examine the school system’s books. Moore said she wants recommendations from the committee in May or June.

The superintendent, also a member of the committee, said the committee will consider the cost of running a small school, its standing with the community, and whether it could be merged well with a nearby school.

“This is not just a numbers game,” Moore said. “There are many factors to consider.”

Actually, there is only one factor that needs to be considered: enrollment numbers.  Huntsville’s schools operate at about 61% capacity.  Some schools are overflowing with students, others are below 50% full.  That is wanton mismanagement and if this were a business people - including the management who nurtured this dilemma - would be getting pink slips.

It is just that simple.  You study current and projected enrollment.  You redraw district lines so that each retained school operates around 75-90% capacity.  Make every effort to occupy only the newer buildings.  Then you close and sell off the properties you no longer use.  Now you don’t need as much staff.  Lay off the underperformers - I’m sure the union will whine about this - and keep the good ones.  Problem solved.

We all know that the school board, with the general exception of Jennie Robinson and occasionally Topper Birney, does not have the spine to implement this plan.  Lord knows Dr. Moore will bring up the remaining court desegregation order - that no one seems to be trying to get lifted - as an excuse for not redrawing district lines in a reasonable manner.  They’ll probably just shuffle things around and make the situation worse.

Get a load of this absurdity in Massachusetts…

To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.

more stories like thisInstead of calling these schools “underperforming,” the Board of Education is considering labeling them as “Commonwealth priority,” to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.

Schools in the direst straits, now known as “chronically underperforming,” would get the more urgent but still vague label of “priority one.”

Amazingly, the only student on the board is the sole member with a lick of common sense.

Zachary Tsetsos, a senior at Oxford High School and the only student on the board, said he finds the debate frivolous.

“Why are we spending time on this?,” said the 17-year-old. “I don’t want to tiptoe around the issue. I’m not concerned about what title we give these schools. Let’s work on fixing them.”

Where my wife taught in Maryland they didn’t give “F’s” to kids who failed; they gave them “E’s.”  I’ve heard of teachers who spurn red ink in favor of green because they are afraid copious red ink will hurt the feelings of dummies intellectually challenged pupils.  Idiot used to be a medically accepted term to describe a person who suffered from “profound mental retardation.”

Face it, some words acquire negative connotations in the general vernacular over time due to what the word describes.  Failure itself isn’t a bad word, but some view it as bad because no one wants to be labeled a failure because they’ve seen all the losers who have borne that unfortunate descriptor.  But whether you’re called a failure or a special project or a Munson eventually the name you are given will come to represent what you really are: a loser.  We can endlessly cycle through words or ink colors, but the underlying facts remain.  Those schools in Massachusetts still suck and kids who get E’s or F’s are still going to be serving up fries for a living.

Worth a read.

In the annals of judicial imperialism, we have arrived at a strange new chapter. A California court ruled this month that parents cannot “home school” their children without government certification. No teaching credential, no teaching. Parents “do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote California appellate Justice Walter Croskey.

The 166,000 families in the state that now choose to educate their children at home must be stunned. But at least one political lobby likes the ruling. “We’re happy,” the California Teachers Association’s Lloyd Porter told the San Francisco Chronicle. He says the union believes all students should be taught only by “credentialed” teachers, who will in due course belong to unions.

…

That so many families turn to home schooling is a market solution to a market failure — namely the dismal performance of the local education monopoly.

That last sentence resonates with me.  My wife and I have three young children who will be school age quite soon (too soon!).  We’ve casually toyed with the notion of homeschooling, but as the time to decide draws nearer we’ve begun to more seriously discuss the options.

Despite being zoned to one of the best government run high schools in the state of Alabama, Grissom H.S. in Huntsville, neither of us can really get behind the idea of relying on the government to teach our children.  We just quite honestly feel that we can do better ourselves.  It’s not that the government schools lack quality teachers, but more a reaction to our own situation - my wife is a former high school social studies teacher and I’m an engineer - and the realities of today’s instructional dictates under the No Child Gets Ahead federal edict.

Not terribly surprising.

[M]any states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only about 70 percent of the one million American students who start ninth grade each year graduate four years later.

California, for example, sends to Washington an official graduation rate of 83 percent but reports an estimated 67 percent on a state Web site. Delaware reported 84 percent to the federal government but publicized four lower rates at home.

In Alabama only about 60% of ninth graders will go on to graduate.  Only about 30% of those ninth graders will be prepared for college.

Maybe we should give them more money!  Or how about more federal mandates!

From Time (emphasis mine):

Parents of the approximately 200,000 home schooled children in California are reeling from the possibility that they may have to shutter their classrooms — and go back to school themselves, if they want to continue teaching their own kids. On Feb. 28, Judge H. Walter Croskey of the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles ruled that children ages six to 18 may be taught only by credentialed teachers in public or private schools — or at home by mom and dad but only if they have a teaching degree. Citing state law that goes back to the early 1950s, Croskey declared that “California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.” Furthermore, the judge wrote, if instructors teach without credentials they will be subject to criminal action.

Wow.

Well, not really.  Half are below the median, but that doesn’t have the same ring.

From AL.com:

Under a proposal awaiting possible state approval next month, all Alabama high school students will be automatically placed in honors classes, starting next year.

Can they still be considered “honors classes” if everyone takes them?

I crunched some numbers a while back and came to the conclusion that only 28% of ninth graders entering Alabama’s high schools will be prepared for college by the time they graduate (or are at least scheduled to do so).  That’s right, currently 72% will be unprepared.

Part of the problem lies in the dismal graduation rate, which is somewhere below 70%  - depending on which statistics you’re looking at it may be well below that threshold.  Of those that do graduate and enroll in college in Alabama, 28% are currently not prepared for college.

I’m sure putting all the kids in honors classes will fix the problem, though.  No way it would lead to the honors classes being watered down.