School: A Place to Teach or to Sell?

by Emiliano Huet-Vaughn

Federal monies devoted to education seem pitifully small when compared to the military budget: discretionary military spending is eight times greater than the education budget. The federal government spends less than 7 percent of total income tax dollars on elementary, secondary, adult, and higher education. Since 1980, education spending for these school levels has actually been cut by a fourth in terms of its share of the total budget. The high school graduation rate in the United States (72 percent) is one of the lowest of the industrialized countries. Our school systems rank in the middle and lower ends of that group in many measures. Many schools lack adequate books, full-time teachers, classroom resources, and working facilities.

In marches the Pentagon with one form of education subsidy that has grown exponentially over this last decade: high school JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps). In over 2,700 public high schools, military programs (in the form of JROTC) have become a mainstay of school life. They are one of the most prevalent intrusions of advertising into the school setting. Just as soft drink companies contract with different schools to be the sole supplier for the student body, the branches of the military divide up the education landscape amongst themselves.

Many people may be unaware or not like to think that they allow students to be subjected to this type of advertising. School officials hesitate to admit the extent to which they have already allowed advertisement to be substituted for education. But the evidence that the JROTC program is a tax-funded sales pitch is overwhelming.

Like other advertisers, the military, through JROTC and other means, sells a false picture. Most educators would agree that if a student is interested in military service, information should be provided to him or her. However, most teachers would also agree that this information should not be presented in a way that leaves out fundamental facts. JROTC does not provide students with the full picture of the military. It chooses not to mention details such as war crimes, civilian massacres, and U.S. Army torture techniques. Racism, sexism, and homophobia in the military find little criticism in JROTC texts, and the government's mistreatment of veterans goes unanswered.

As a review of the last 50 years of military-civilian relations will show, this deception is an inherent part of our military's character. The military spends increasingly larger sums on expensive, misleading ad campaigns hinged on glossy, glib commercials. After all, recruitment is but a more aggressive form of advertising, only one in which the salesperson is not just after one's money, but also the possession and loyalty of years of one's life.

Many parallels can be drawn between our modern military and the modern corporation. While the GAP may be selling a sweater and all the multifaceted connotations of beautiful, hip people that it would like to portray as given accessories to that sweater, the Defense Department sells the image of the military as a heroic, infallible organization that is, and always has been, concerned with nothing but defending democracy, liberty, and justice. For both the GAP and the military, the target audience is the same: the coveted teen demographic over whom advertisers drool. While the GAP tries to make its clothing look sleek, fashionable, and cutting-edge, the military does the same by making entering the services seem like the most alluring decision in the world. For instance, JROTC texts typically embellish the positive side of the military while failing to mention that which casts a negative light on our armed forces.

The motives behind such a bias are easily understood: just as the GAP doesn't make ads depicting their brutal use of sweatshop laborers, the military is not going to spend money mentioning its oppression of peoples abroad. People would be appalled, or perhaps find the situation ludicrously laughable, if Coca-Cola and McDonalds came into the school setting to teach a class on nutrition. The public is smart enough to realize that neither company would tell it straight given the nutritional inadequacy of their products coupled with their desire to make a sale.

So why is the military, which operates like Coca-Cola and McDonalds when it comes to selling its product, allowed to infiltrate our schools and inculcate the youth of America with a filtered, circumscribed view of history? The military claims that JROTC is a class designed to benefit students, but really it is an overpriced sales pitch that the public pays for in both dollars (about half a billion worth) and miseducation.

About the Author

Emiliano Huet-Vaughn is a graduating high school senior in the Kansas City, Kansas area.

Sources

Hellman, Christopher. "Fiscal Year 2001 Discretionary Budget Request." Center For Defense Information. May 25, 2001 http://www.cdi.org/issues/usmi/fy01/Discre.html
Speeter, Greg. "More Bucks for the Bang." Covert Action Quarterly, Winter 1999: 20-23.
Barron, Walt. "Junior ROTC Eyed As Cheaper Recruiting Tool." Congressional Quarterly Daily Monitor, February 18, 2000.

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