Sf Chronicle Editorial:politics & Jrotc

[meangreendork]

Politics and JROTC

Sunday, November 18, 2007

SF Chronicle Editorial

"I participated in ROTC while at Lowell High School in the 1970s. I was ardently anti-Vietnam before I went in. ROTC gave me an insight into military history and organization and my anti-war views did not waver. In fact, they were more informed and provided a stronger basis for me to distinguish those views." Those words were written by Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund president John Trasviña to the San Francisco school board - one of many letters sent to the board pleading with it to take back a 2006 vote to expel JROTC from all San Francisco high schools.

Trasviña noted that JROTC helped children of immigrant families by expanding their capacity for "self discipline and accountability." While he now opposes the Iraq war, he looks back at his experience in JROTC 27 years ago and values how it prepared him for "a career devoted to civil rights and public service."

On Tuesday, San Francisco school board president Mark Sanchez, acknowledging that he did not have the votes needed for passage, pulled a scheduled vote on a measure that purported to extend JROTC for one year.

It was not really a reprieve at all, but a slower form of execution. The measure called for the closure of two JROTC programs in seven high schools, restricted ninth-grade enrollment and installed a new district policy that would not allow cadets to earn physical education credits.

Only a vote to revoke the 2006 vote will save JROTC.

San Francisco students and parents deserve better. The 2006 vote was passed by a different school board. A majority of today's board says that it supports keeping JROTC until the district develops a suitable replacement program. Board member Kim-Shree Maufus, co-author of the Sanchez plan, told us, "In a nutshell, what I would love to see happen with JROTC is that it transform itself into a program that is incredibly apt at providing youth-development, youth-leadership, community-service-learning program." The translation, in a nutshell: JROTC without the military.

Since the task force assigned to replicate JROTC without the military did not meet until April, that day - if it ever does occur - is many years away.

Until that day, the board should reverse the 2006 anti-JROTC vote so that that 1,200 students enrolled in the program can stick with a school activity that actually works.

Maufus nixed that idea. While she does not like to see JROTC in "limbo land," she added, "I'm not going to open the can of worms that the precedent would set that we would go back and start reversing previous board decisions." We can think of 1,200 good reasons - 1,200 cadets - to open that can of worms.

Supporters of JROTC are considering a ballot measure to overturn the 2006 vote. San Francisco does not need more government-by-initiative. The school board needs to get its priorities straight - and the best interest of the students must come first.

Enough of the political grandstanding. Keep JROTC.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...;type=printable

As someone that came out of a JROTC program, I gotta say that keeping them around and stopping an iffy precedent are important. But this article really shows politics reaching its nose into places it doesn't belong and fiddling with things it doesn't need.

[UNTflyer]

Only in San Francisco....

[meangreendork]

Seriously. Unless money were super-super tight, that'd never happen in Texas.

[UNTflyer]

San Fran has been passing a lot of anti-military ordinances.

I say if they refuse to support them then they should not enjoy the benefits of the military... like the billions of dollars in contracts pouring into Silicon Valley.

[KRAM1]

Don't get me started o the polioti9cs of this stuff... San Fran is soooooooooooo, well san fran. I try not to pay attention to what they say or do...like most of the politicians and courts in California as a whole....ther should be re-named...The People's Republic of California or something close to that!

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

San Francisco....where the women are women and half the men are too. Isn't this the city that has dropped gender from all IDs?

[Coffee and TV]

Seriously. Unless money were super-super tight, that'd never happen in Texas.

You're right, they'd just drop the unimportant things like music and art...

[Coffee and TV]

Don't get me started o the polioti9cs of this stuff... San Fran is soooooooooooo, well san fran. I try not to pay attention to what they say or do...like most of the politicians and courts in California as a whole....ther should be re-named...The People's Republic of California or something close to that!

[greenminer]

Oh, Frisco! You don’t like that either...

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

And you’re a city of snakes, I see!