Good news for San Francisco’s JROTC
Bookworm on Apr 02 2009 at 8:16 am | Filed under: Education, San Francisco
Despite the fact that it is a voluntary organization, that the costs to the school system are minimal, and that the kids who join it do well in school and are exemplary citizens, San Francisco’s hostility to the JROTC knows no bounds, and the school system has done its best to destroy the organization. One brave San Francisco assembly person, however, is taking a stand against this very City-style lunacy, and things are going well so far:
A proposal to force the San Francisco Unified School District to keep the Junior Reserves Officers’ Training Corps program cleared its first hurdle Wednesday as it passed through an Assembly committee.
The legislation, authored by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, would specifically require San Francisco public schools to offer JROTC to students in grades nine through 12 and would overturn the decision of the school board to eliminate the program.
“We acknowledge that, in the general course of events, state government should not dictate programs to local districts, but we have plenty of case law that tells us the state is legally responsible for our schools and that the locally elected school board members are caretakers,” Ma told the Assembly Education Committee.
She placed significant emphasis on the passage of Proposition V in November, a resolution urging the school board to retain JROTC that passed with 55 percent of the vote.
Ma said the school board members who will not reconsider are “refusing to uphold the will of the voters.”
“Three renegade school board members are playing games with the lives of our students,” she said at the hearing, where scores of students from San Francisco high schools testified in support of the measure.
Fiona Ma definitely gets kudos for the day.
Related posts:
- San Francisco sneakily applies slow poison to JROTC
- San Francisco’s JROTC survived a sneak attack — barely
- JROTC-lite
Email This Post To A Friend
3 Responses to “Good news for San Francisco’s JROTC”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Please take it from me, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma is a dear. Not quite exactly like us in our conservatism, but she has a deep love and respect for this country, it values, and its military.
Her recent gesture to support NJROTC is not just a one-time thing, either. She’s been this way all along.
If you’ll recall those two dozen or so distinguished folks I introduced you to last October, most think the world of her — quietly.
Thanks, SJBill. I am so pleased to hear that her core values extend beyond one issue — and that people value her for her principled stands. She must have a tough time in the Assembly.
[...] bar the military from San Francisco schools (SF Admin. Code, Appx. 74), shut down JROTC (although a few stalwarts have managed to hold the line), impeach Republican administrations (SF Admin. Code, Appx. 76), and generally work to shut down [...]