minorthird

Military recruiters target schools strategically

I saw this in the page this morning, and I found it very interesting. The military has a strategy to enlist high school students, and approaches the entire thing from a hard sell marketing approach. Now, I’m not retard, and I’m not ignorant, and it’s not a surprise to me that they do this — it’s just a surprise that the article is in the paper.

Military recruiting saturates life at McDonough High, a working-class public school where recruiters chaperon dances, students in a junior ROTC class learn drills from a retired sergeant major in uniform, and every prospect gets called at least six times by the Army alone.

Recruiters distribute key chains, mugs, and military brochures at McDonough’s cafeteria. They are trained to target students at schools like McDonough across the country, using techniques such as identifying a popular student — whom they call a “center of influence” — and conspicuously talking to that student in front of others.

Meanwhile, at McLean High, a more affluent public school 37 miles away in Virginia, there is no military chaperoning and no ROTC class. Recruiters adhere to a strict quota of visits, lining up behind dozens of colleges. In the guidance office, military brochures are dwarfed by college pennants. Posters promote life amid ivy-covered walls, not in the cockpits of fighter jets.

Students from McDonough are as much as six times more likely than those from McLean to join the military, a disparity that is replicated elsewhere. A survey of the military’s recruitment system found that the Defense Department zeroes in on schools where students are perceived to be more likely to join up, while making far less effort at schools where students are steered toward college.

Six times as likely! Why aren’t these students steered toward college? I know that some students don’t want to go to college or cannot afford it, but this article makes it seem like there are high schools out there that are in bed with the military and don’t push college as much.

Principals and teachers play a role in determining whether military recruitment succeeds. In schools where educators are skeptical of the military, recruiters are shut out beyond the minimum required by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act: two visits a year per service, as well as a list with every student’s name, address, and phone number.

How does military recruitment at all relate to No Child Left Behind? Maybe it should be called the “No Child Left Behind, But If They Are We Can Send Them To Die Act”

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2004 at 9:37 am and is filed under political cynism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.