"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Monday, February 11, 2008

U. S. Military: Be All That You Can Be--But Without an Education

The thinly-disguised racism and classism that characterizes today's "scientifically-based" education testing movement offers a steady stream of desperate dropouts, pushouts, and squeakers-by for military recruiters to pick from. Now in a moment of rare candor, the military actually tells us why it is against the new G.I. Bill being proposed in Congress. From Inside Higher Ed:
While momentum is growing in Congress to pass a new GI Bill, adding education benefits for a generation of veterans serving in Iraq, the Pentagon and Bush administration are opposed. The reason? The Boston Globe reported that it is fear that better education benefits would discourage those who have the option to leave from re-enlisting. The Globe quoted Robert Clarke, assistant director of accessions policy at the Department of Defense, as saying that “the incentive to serve and leave” might with better education benefits “outweigh the incentive to have them stay.”

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