Update on saving Senn H.S. as a general community high school

1. Enrollment at Senn H.S. is up this year by almost 200 students, a good sign that the school is doing well. But, the Board of Education has been delaying assigning new teachers to ease overcrowding of classes. Education has suffered as a result. Meanwhile, Rickover Naval Academy, which is under-enrolled, has a lot of space and a much smaller student-teacher ratio.

2. New programs at Senn H.S. are developing the range and quality of Senn H.S. The AVID program to show students how to prepare for college has grown in numbers of students as has the IB Program (International Baccalaureate); courses geared towards green technology and global arts and design are developing. These programs, supported and in some cases initiated by the Senn Strategic Planning Group and the Local School Council, show the quality of governance and continuing community support for the school as a general community high school. However, efforts to recruit future Senn students have been undercut by the Board of Education. The Board’s practice of keeping most CPS schools insecure in their planning for future enrollment means that the Board refuses at this time to get the word out to Senn’s feeder schools to confirm the September 2009-2010 school year.

3. The effort continues to keep Senn H.S. as a general community school, one which really needs to reclaim all of the space in the school building. The full space is needed so that its programs can further flourish and grow.

   The effort also needs to continue to have a democratic process in which all proposals for change from any source go through the Local School Council (LSC) and, as relevant, to the Senn Strategic Planning Committee for input. As we know from recent years, the alderman and the Board of Education impose decisions such as putting Rickover Naval Academy into the school building, over the opposition of students, faculty, parents, and the general community. Senn’s continuing forward motion, despite the attempts to undermine it, proves that Senn deserves to survive and thrive in its own building as a general community high school. No other plan or program should be any part of Senn’s future. As proven by the existence of the Rickover Naval Academy, separate has not been equal for the Senn H.S. students or staff.

4. Seventeen different classes of Senn alumni along with current students, parents, former teachers and neighbors showed up for a “Hands around Senn” program on Saturday, September 27. This was to celebrate Senn High School’s rich past and promising future as a general community high school, in this, Senn’s 95th year. The event was organized by the team of Ana Paz (Senn alumna), and Helen Murtaugh and Pam Bean, former Senn teachers.

5. The Senn Strategic Planning Committee will have a table at the Tuesday, October 21 Senn High School Open House, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Come and support Senn High School, spread the word, and help out at that table if you can.

Schools Should Be for Learning, Not Military Recruiting A number of RNA cadets swear up and down to us that no military recruiting goes on in the Rickover Naval Academy. We believe the cadets when they say that they do not feel they are being recruited into the military. However, the high recruitment rates nationwide from JROTC military programs into the active military prove that very skillful recruiting is taking place generally in JROTC programs. And the government is pouring big bucks into the JROTC programs in Chicago, the biggest program in the country. Let’s be clear. JROTC is meant to be a recruiting program. Government regulations state that JROTC “should create favorable attitudes and impressions toward the Services and toward careers in the Armed Forces” (Title 32, 542.5, 3c).
And former Secretary of Defense William Cohen told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee (in 2000) that JROTC is “one of the best recruiting devices we could have.” Government officials have said up to 60% or more of students in public school military programs go on to join the regular military, either the active military or the reserves or National Guard, etc. (over 30% to the Army and 30% to the Marines). They do this either right after high school or after they go to college. This military recruiting comes at a time when the government is desperate to get new recruits for the illegal and unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere that the American people are opposing in huge numbers. The 2008 U.S. military modernization strategy, written by Lieutenant Gen Stephen Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the US army (and available on the internet), acknowledges that the US military is dangerously overstretched internationally– “The army is engaged in the third-longest war in our nation’s history and . . . the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has caused the army to become out of balance with the demand for forces exceeding the sustainable supply.” The recruiting today comes at a time when young people and their parents should be seriously considering the moral questions involved in U.S. wars these days– wars of aggression for oil and power. Recruiters usually don’t mention to young people that they are being recruited to commit war crimes, in which the U.S. is defying the UN Charter (which is U.S. law since the U.S. government signed it), and which says, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…” unless that country has attacked the U.S. Neither Iraq nor Iran nor the government of Afghanistan ever attacked the U.S. So, eyes need to be wide open to the unjust killing and destruction the military orders troops to carry out, including those in the Navy who have been assigned to ground service in Iraq or elsewhere or are shooting missiles or flying combat missions. We say to students and parents: Refuse to take the bait that recruiters use to get students and parents to ignore their consciences. And let’s get better organized to make sure that schools are for learning, not military recruiting. People have organized in San Francisco so that JROTC may well be on its way out of the San Francisco Public Schools. We can work to get it out of the Chicago Public Schools. A first step is to see how serious the problem is. Here are a few of the shocking facts: • The number of units of Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in the country has gone up from 1,000 in 1967 to over 3,200 units two years ago. The Congressional goal is for 3,500 JROTC units in two more years.
• Today there are half a million students enrolled in military programs in the U.S. public schools out of a total of 13 million or so students in public school grades 9-12.
• High school students are regularly subjected to often high pressure from military recruiters allowed into the schools, and students are frequently contacted by recruiters who use lists of names obtained from the school (except for those who opt out of being contacted). Federal law mandates that schools are for recruiting, not just for learning. Recruiters must be allowed into the schools, and to get data about students (except for those who opt out), and must be allowed onto college campuses as well. There is the No Child Left Behind law (Section 9528) as well as the Sullivan Law mandating this. Specifics on the military recruiting in Chicago schools– • Chicago’s JROTC is the largest in the country with more than 9,000 cadets. This is about 1 out of every 10 students. At least 44 of the city’s 93 high schools have a JROTC program. • Chicago has more military academies as public schools than other cities, 1/3 of all the military academies in the U.S.
• In Chicago, the recruiting is race and class based– the U.S. military has entrenched itself in a public school system that is mainly nonwhite and poor, about 50% African-American and 38% Latino. 85 percent of the students come from low-income families. The military programs reflect this, and is prime recruiting ground for the military, since many of these students have few options after high school, or even after college. • Despite a federal statute restricting JROTC to a course offering for students in ninth through 12th grades, 20 of Chicago’s middle schools have Cadet Corps, a modified version of high school JROTC. JROTC is possibly illegal in other ways –
The United States is often violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service. The Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which is attached to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, requires that all recruitment activities directed at children under 18 be carried out only with the consent of the child’s parents or guardian, that any such recruitment be genuinely voluntary, and that the military fully inform the child of the duties involved in military service. Right now military recruiters only talk about careers, not the warfare now going on in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making it binding under U.S law. The Congress decided on 17 as the absolute minimum for the United States. Furthermore, new U.S. Congressional legislation adopted on September 15, 2008, The Child Soldiers Accountability Act, makes it a federal crime to knowingly recruit or use soldiers under the age of 15 The law imposes penalties of up to 20 years. There is a lot we need to do to ensure that schools are for high quality learning, critical thinking with ethical decision-making, diverse skills, and definitely not for military recruiting. Join with the Save Senn Coalition in this effort.

OPT OUT–STOP MILITARY RECRUITERS FROM CONTACTING YOU AT HOME– OPT OUT Send a letter like the following opt-out form (or this form) to Office of High School Programs, Chicago Public Schools, 125 S. Clark St., 9th floor, Chicago, IL 60603— I request that the name, address, and telephone number of the following student not be given to the military for recruitment purposes. Student’s name______________________________ Student ID number____________________ Parent/guardian OR student signature__________________________

This entry was posted on October 22nd, 2008 and is filed under Special.