Popular JROTC program still struggles to survive

JROTC in the Saint Patrick's Day parade

Today's story in the Examiner on JROTC characterizes the struggle to retain the program in city schools as

...a program that has been mired in controversy. Teachers and students rallied two years ago to keep the program from being cut. In that instance, the school district struck a deal to keep the JROTC as an independent study course for students, as a way to partially fulfill the state requirement for high school students to have 400 minutes of physical education per week.

It wasn't just "teachers and students" who rallied in support of JROTC. It was the school board and then city voters who chose in 2008 to keep the program by 55-45%. It was only the city's "progressive" political community that created the "controversy" in the first place, as they tried to kill the program for political reasons using the credential issue as a pretext.

Rachel Norton is right: it's ridiculous to make long-time teachers go through a program that makes them repeat the student teaching requirement to get this credential.