Don't We Want Guns And Bigotry Out of Our Schools?
by Sam Diener

(a digested version of this piece was published by the SF
Examiner as a letter to the editor on Tuesday, June 27, 1995)

Imagine a national organization proposing to run a program in
the SF Schools. They'll call it leadership training, but it will
mostly consist of giving and obeying orders. It will teach the
students to carry and shoot guns. The curriculum, which
glorifies "wiping out" Native Americans and contains
misinformation about AIDS, will be dictated by the organization
without District oversight. As for instructors, no lesbians, gays,
bisexuals, or people with disabilities need apply. The program
will recruit students into an organization which uses deadly
violence to achieve its aims. The activities will include ritual
hazing that will be covered up by instructors, at the extra cost
of only a few lawsuits. It will cost the district $575,000 per
year.

Will the School Board violate its own policies against
discrimination and guns in schools and spend our money to
promote violence? They already have. The program, run by the
military, is called JROTC, the Junior Reserve Officer Training
Corps.

The Pentagon runs these programs in 2200 schools nationwide,
including 8 here in San Francisco. The Pentagon's JROTC
expansion program has sparked controversy across the
country. School Boards in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Columbia,
Missouri, and Cottage Grove, Oregon, among others, have
recognized a bad deal when they've heard one. They've
rejected JROTC.

The San Francisco School Board has the opportunity to reverse
the damage already done when they vote Tuesday, June 27th
on a proposal by Steve Phillips and Dan Kelly to replace JROTC
with nonviolent, non-discriminatory youth leadership
development programs. The day before, the S.F. Board of
Supervisors will vote on a resolution, authored by Tom
Ammiano, to support this move.

Superintendent of Schools Rojas admitted at a budget hearing
on June 19 that if we replaced JROTC, we would have enough
money to hire ten academically credentialed teachers (JROTC
instructors need no such credential, nor do they need college
degrees) to run alternative programs and still have a surplus of
between $100,000-$125,000. (Note: Since this piece was
published, we discovered that the District overestimated (or
lied about) the number of students in SF JROTC by 300
students. Therefore, it would only be necessary to hire eight
certified teachers to run alternative programs. Thus, the
surplus would be between $200,000-$225,000.)

Exciting alternative programs include: YouthBuild USA, which
teaches youth to build low-income housing while teaching
leadership and cooperation skills; the Community Studies
and Service Program, which has already demonstrated its
effectiveness in a demonstration program at 6 high schools;
The Real Alternatives Program, which has proven its
effectiveness with at-risk youth and needs $30,000 to survive;
Firefighter training, which already exists and could be
expanded; Community Educational Services, which
provides literacy and self-esteem training for immigrant
students; the Student Empowerment Project, which has
been demonstrating for and developing multicultural studies;
Project 10, to confront homophobia throughout the district;
and the California Conservation Corps, which has a track
record of integrating service, physical activity, and life-skills
training.

The question is not whether alternatives to JROTC exist, the
problem will be in deciding among the many worthy
alternatives. It's time that San Francisco sent a strong signal to
the Pentagon that discrimination is not acceptable. Neither are
guns in schools. It's time San Francisco sent a strong message to
youth that we live by the nonviolent, anti-discriminatory
values we preach. It's time the School Board replaced JROTC.

Sam Diener is a high school teacher who coordinates the
national Stop The Military Invasion of Our Schools Campaign at
the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) was
founded in 1948 to protect and promote the rights of conscientious
objectors to war.  We promote conscientious opposition to war by
curtailing the militarization and military recruitment of youth, stopping
the expansion of JROTC, assisting GI's who face military injustice and
educating young people and the public about conscientious objection,
the draft and alternatives to military service. We are a consensus-based
egalitarian national organization with offices in San Francisco, CA and
Philadelphia, PA.

CCCO

415-474-3002, 415-474-2311 fax
655 Sutter #514, San Francisco, CA 94102
cccowr@igc.apc.org

215-241-7196, 215-567-2096 fax
1515 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102
ccco@igc.apc.org

Stop JROTC Hotline: 1-800-NO-JROTC (1-800-665-7682) (brand new!)
Part of the GI Rights Network Hotline: 1-800-FYI-95GI (1-800-394-9544)