Volume 10 Issue 1 A Message from the Chair… Admissions: The Impact of Cultural Bend and a special contribution by Capital and College Admissions Heather L. Horsley, PhD Candidate in Preparations on College Destinations.” Policy Studies in Urban Education at the We had several excellent submissions University of Illinois at Chicago. Finally, I want to encourage members this year and the committee's choice Thanks to all our members who was a difficult one. However, the quality to contribute to the Division newsletter made our meeting in Atlanta of the submissions also inspires and to the listserv by sending us your such a success. Special thanks tremendous optimism for the future of thoughts, comments, kudos, or by to the organizers and to the our Division and our struggle to address volunteering an essay. Please presiders of the Educational remember, our Division's success is a the pressing educational issues of our Problems Division sponsored time. collective effort and every member's and co-sponsored sessions. I also want to acknowledge Maria E. participation is essential! Best wishes Also, I would like to convey my for a healthy and happy end of the Luna-Duarte for her continuing work on personal gratitude to Heather behalf of the Division. Not only does semester! Dalmadge and Gideon Sjoberg Maria produce a stellar newsletter but for participating on our she also assists in other aspects of Pamela Division's Student Paper Award Division work and we are very fortunate Pamela Anne Quiroz, Ph.D. selection committee. to have Maria back for a second year. I Professor of Educational Policy Studies Congratulations again to Kristin hope that you all had a wonderful & Sociology summer and that you are having a Marie Jordan, from the University of Illinois-Chicago Department of Sociology at productive fall. Division Chair, 2009-2011 Indiana University for an Our fall newsletter includes an interview outstanding paper titled, "A with Otis Grant, Associate Professor of Competitive Edge in College Law and Society in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University South INSIDE THIS ISSUE… Greetings from the Chair 1 2011 Annual Meeting of The Society for the Study of Social Problems Negotiating the Relative Contribution of Public Military Academies to School Service Sociology Reform 2-3 August 12 – 14, 2011 2011 Student Call for Papers & Renaissance Blackstone Chicago Hotel Nominations for Div. Chair. 4 Chicago, Illinois 2011 Annual Meeting Call for 5 We hope to see all of you there! Agent of Social Change 6-7 Upcoming Conferences 8 Message from the Editor 9 Visit us at www.sssp1.org Educational Problems, Page 2 Negotiating the Relative Contribution of Public Military Academies to School Reform Special Contribution of: Heather L. Horsley E: [email protected], Doctoral Candidate, University of Illinois at Chicago In Chicago as in large urban centers nationwide, public as well Black and Latina/o youth who are negotiating the benefits and as charter schools are experimenting with different approaches to limitations of experiencing the public military model of educational youth leadership development as a way to improve such school opportunity. outcomes as graduation rates, performance on standardized What is a Public Military Academy? In the context of Chicago, there are three distinctive achievement tests, and post-secondary education enrollment. The characteristics shared by all Public Military Academies. First, they recent addition of Public Military Academies to the educational are selective enrollment, which means the students who attend a reform landscape suggests that this school model responds to the public military academy must apply and they must meet academic immediate need for city school systems to provide greater selection criteria as well as interview for a position at the school. opportunities for academic and social success for lower-income Second, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Black and Latino/a students. Chicago Public Military Academies fit participation is required all four years of high school. Public Military the “turnaround” school reform philosophy that is scaling up from Academy students attend JROTC everyday and they are required local reforms to federal educational policy making (Calkins, to comply with Army uniform codes everyday. This is where the Department of Defense (DoD) plays a role in the funding of these Guenther, Belfiore & Lash, 2007). Chicago in particular is taking schools. The DoD supplies the uniforms and pays half the salaries the lead in this experiment, as it is host to over half of all the of the JROTC instructors who are retired military officers and military-themed public high schools in the nation. teach the JROTC curriculum. Third, all Chicago Public Military Chicago Public Schools’ former CEO Arnie Duncan, a Academies are designed to offer a college preparatory curriculum proponent of this educational reform model who now serves as and college going support structure. State certified civilian Secretary of Education, is one of several policy leaders who educators teach the core academic subject matter. The main explicitly connect the “achievement gap” and “failing schools” difference is that each class whether JROTC or Geometry is expected to have a class leader who leads the class in saying the concepts. Further, Chicago Public Schools’ administration insist “Cadet Creed” and assists the teacher with administrative tasks that, “the military-themed schools give students more choices and such as taking attendance. It is important to note that the provide an opportunity to enroll in schools that provide structure, participants of my study make direct links between the JROTC discipline and a focus on leadership. The schools emphasize component of the school and the college preparatory focus of academics, not recruitment” (Banchero & Sadovi, 2007). While it these schools. In other words, I often heard about how these two seems only sensible to provide new models of schooling that will models “go hand in hand.” provide rigorous academic and affirming social experiences for the A Snapshot of Learning to Lead within a Chicago Public lower income Black and Latina/o high school students who are not Military Academy As the early morning sun creates a silver outline of the skyline, served well by existing neighborhood schools, the fact that these morning formation at a Chicago Public Military Academy proceeds opportunities are directly linked to the military model of education like clockwork. Black and Latina/o students’ chins are up and through a partnership between a large inner city public school shoulders back as they stand at attention in their school’s concrete district and the Department of Defense (DOD) complicates this courtyard. Platoon Sergeants, serving as youth leaders, conduct new model of schooling. uniform checks. The great majority of the squad members are The current political economic context of war and recession, sleepy; yet dressed to impress, which earns them merits. The few juxtaposed with a public school system that is perceived as failing who fail to tuck in their shirts to the Army standard are quietly to educate its students for economic and political citizenship, corrected by their youth leaders and still earn demerits. Still a few situates the development of the Public Military Academies within a others find ways to work in quick chats with a friend in their squad. polarized debate. Opponents to this model are concerned that When or rather if, caught, the Platoon Sergeant “drops” them and these schools will function as vehicles for military recruitment gives them demerits. Without much protest, the students finish (Berlowitz and Long, 2003; EnLoe, 2000; Lipman, 2004; Lutz & their set of 10 push-ups and fall back into their respective positions Bartlett, 1995), while proponents insist that it embodies an equity in the squad. Shortly thereafter, the Platoon Sergeants in unison agenda, as the military is perceived as an avenue for social firmly call out, “Platoons, are you motivated?” All of a sudden, a mobility (Hajjar, 2005; Laurence and Ramsberger, 1991; Moskos huge awakening occurs as nearly all-120 students respond, and Butler, 1996). Still a few others contemplate the complex contradictions of the opportunity by considering tensions “Motivated, motivated down right motivated. surrounding the military’s commitment to black achievement You check us out. You check us out. (Moskos & Butler, 1997) and development of egalitarian racial and Smooth Sergeant” gender roles (Clark Hine, 1982; Perez, 2006). My dissertation The Company Commander who is a youth leader with even higher research aims to document the meaning of opportunity from those rank than the Platoon Sergeants dismiss the smiling students in that are most affected by the controversy surrounding the Chicago time for first period. Public Military Academies –that is from the perspective of the Visit us at www.sssp1.org Educational Problems, Page 3 Negotiating the Relative Contribution of Public Military Academies to School Reform continued… Although I am only able to provide a snapshot of one of the doing justice to the sense of agency the youth bring to the ways youth experience leadership at a Public Military Academy, complexity of the case stems from employing ideas and one important observational note is that 6 of the 7 youth practices that view young people as leaders, including the Company Commander are all young significant political beings in their own right now and not just women equally representing Black and Latina racial and ethnic for some future development (Duncan-Andrade, 2008; Wyn identities. Despite the fact that researchers document the & White, 1997). Army’s institutional identity as one that is hyper-masculinist Lastly, I am attempting to provide timely research on an (Segal, 2005), it is quite striking to find that not only the majority emerging school reform model that has been largely of JROTC participants are young women (Lutz and Bartlett, 1995), but that, according to the population of my study, the scrutinized only theoretically by both proponents and young women are also the leaders in JROTC.