Plans for Marine high school stopped

A small article in the local newspaper announcing a DeKalb County Board of Education decision to open a public high school as a Marine Institute this fall ignited an immediate response from anti-war groups, veterans’ organizations, parents, teachers and youth.

For three months, opponents conducted door-to-door canvassing, wrote letters, rallied, held press conferences and spoke at every possible venue about the multiple reasons DeKalb residents objected to the secret deal with the military.

E-mails and letters sent by the elected members of the school board expressed the sentiment that the largely African-American student population in this Atlanta suburb needed “regimentation and discipline.” Many parents responded that their children needed smaller classes, music and arts programs, better equipment and fully staffed schools.

The plans called for a Marine commandant, for courses in military history and marksmanship, and for youth to wear military uniforms starting in the 9th grade. The Marines’ share of the cost was to come from their recruiting budget, putting the lie to official claims that the school was not a device to increase military enlistment. Other details about the Marine high school were scarce, including the cost, location and curriculum.

On May 29, School Board officials announced that plans for the school had been halted “temporarily,” citing failure to get final approval from the Secretary of the Navy.

Tim Franzen of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the organizers of the community opposition, instead commented that the school board and military “are feeling enormous pressure ... and right now they just want all this pressure to go away.”

He further noted that while Arne Duncan, the Obama administration’s Secretary of Education, was superintendant of Chicago’s public schools, each branch of the military opened a high school there. Across the country, there are at least a dozen public schools operating under military command. Franzen said, “We know this is a continuing fight to provide a quality education for every child, not an unquestioning and lock-step indoctrination that promotes military solutions to economic and social problems.”

The activists plan to hold a news conference and rally before a June 1 school board meeting to reaffirm their determination to stop any future plans to open the Marine Institute in DeKalb County.