SAUNDERS: S.F. Unified -- Love it or leave it

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 11/19/6 | Debra J. Saunders

[SmithL]

IN THE SPECIAL CITY, choice doesn't really mean choice. San Francisco Unified School District trustees proved as much last week when they voted 4-2 to eliminate the popular Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and deprive high-school students of a program that instills leadership and other skills essential to success in a competitive world.

First, the vote was wrong because it hurts kids. Imagine a program so popular that hundreds of students have turned out to support it -- even though it demands from its 1,600 participants behaviors not often associated with teenagers. To wit: punctuality, the proud wearing of a uniform, marching in drills and respecting a chain of command.

In one vote, school board members Dan Kelly, Mark Sanchez, Sarah Lipson and Eric Mar buried a program that can provide structure for the at-risk students whose lives they claim to want to improve. Left-leaning politics clearly are more important to these four than the futures of flesh-and-blood teenagers, who may fall through the educational cracks because they are struggling to develop the self-discipline and leadership skills that JROTC fosters.

Educators like to talk about the need to get kids to think for themselves. This vote shows that a majority of the board doesn't want students to think for themselves, they want them to think as the board members do.

Make no mistake about it. This vote was anti-military -- a slap in the face to veterans who risked their lives defending the freedoms that the four board members enjoy so thoroughly, even as they would deny the district parents and students the freedom to choose.

Sure, the four hide behind the lame argument that JROTC, as the resolution put it, "manifests the military's discrimination against LGBT people." When politicians give phony excuses, that tells you they know...

[SmithL]

San Francisco Values

[IronJack]

The School Board has a right -- indeed an obligation -- to carry out the will of the people who elected it. In abolishing JROTC, they were doing just that.

The beef should be with the people of San Francisco, the latter-day hippies and Haight-Ashbury refugees who never grew up. And if there are a handful of redeemable souls in Gomorrah, then the shame equally belongs to them for not making their voices heard.

[smoketree]

So much for tolerance and choice.
The left is pathetic.

[xrp]

I wish the US Military would formerly announce that San Francisco is no longer under their defense umbrella.

[Dick Bachert]

Political Correctness:

”A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

By spreading this definition around, perhaps we can employ one of the more effective methods of deflating and defeating the fools who practice and promote it: RIDICULE.

Unless stopped – and soon – PC will DESTROY Western Civilization -- if it hasn’t already.

PASS IT ON!!

[El Gato]

To wit: punctuality, the proud wearing of a uniform, marching in drills and respecting a chain of command.

Of which only *Maybe* punctuality is considered a positive behavior in San FreakCisco.

[AliVeritas]

And pull their money. I bet they'll teach them about Islam though.

And they wonder why the kids... many of single parents and no fathers, are out of control... no discipline.

I bet if there was a hurricane or tsunami, the military would be 'good enough' to come in then.

They should secede and get it over with.

[exhaustguy]

The cadets and their families should target every negative voter for removal in the next election. In that way democracy will work.

Failing that is it possible to get a military based charter school in SF? Will demographics allow placement of one or two of these charter schools?

[IronJack]

is it possible to get a military based charter school in SF?

I don't know about a charter school supported by tax money; that would presumably be outlawed under the same regulations that removed JROTC. But there's certainly nothing to stop a private military academy from opening there, providing the market would support such a venture.

I suspect there are more pro-military folks in SF than the harpies and moonbeam chasers would have us believe.

[George W. Bush]

I saw the kids and the instructors on the news. Previously, I hadn't thought that much of the program. But they talked me into it. Too bad it's gone.

It is a rather strange hit on the military. It didn't really provide any base for recruiting in the schools. Relatively few students enlisted.

I think this was about silencing the whining of the homosexuals and the militant anti-war Lefties. And too few people were willing to defend the program, despite its low costs and good results for the students, because the Lefties and the homosexuals are so vicious and well-organized. The poor kids were the main ones left to defend their program to the board and the public at large. Tells you a lot about San Francisco values.

[Dont Mention the War]

You can be sure I'll be remembering this vote when The Big One hits San Francisco and they come forward with their palms outstretched, Katrina- and 9/11-style. I don't care whether it happens tomorrow or 75 years from now; not one thin dime.

[John Lenin]

Should start pulling federal funding from San Fag-cisco. That will teach em ...

[SmithL]

Should start pulling federal funding from San Fag-cisco. That will teach em ...

Nancy Pelosi is going to do this?

[John Lenin]

It would be a good wedge issue, the GOP should put the RATS up against the wall with it.

[Kitten Festival]

This putrid far-left San Francisco school district had its federal funding DOUBLED over the past ten years despite a shrinking student base. These dirtbags got $43 million from the federal government to spit on the military and I think the rest of us taxpayers deserve a refund. San Francisco contributes the fewest per capita volunteers to our military of any major city and has been a real hog wallow of federal funding.