Military academies may serve as solution to poverty

President Lyndon Johnson's administration defined their legislation to help the poor as a "war on poverty."  Although well-meaning it lacked the level of conviction and sustained effort to bring about complete victory.  Arguably, there has never been such a social program, except maybe the New Deal that helped bring an end to the Great Depression.  To fight any kind of war half-heartedly is just a waste of money. 

Although many wars in the wake of World War II have been fought in this manner and as a result, no clear victories, our armed forces are unquestionably the most powerful on the planet.  Often complete victory is denied because of political and economic reasons, not the quality of our troops.  

The way we approach our preparedness for war, not necessarily how we wage them, might serve as a lesson on how to fight poverty.  Aside from technological superiority and economic might, a major reason for our impressive armed forces is our military academies which continuously infuse the military with the very best, young talent.

We have five military academies:  The Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs), Coast Guard Academy (New London), Merchant Marine Academy (Kings Point), Military Academy (West Point), and the Naval Academy (Annapolis).  In exchange for free tuition and other incentives, graduates are commissioned officers who must serve several years in the military and later the reserves.  Kings Point graduates have additional options including work in the civilian maritime industry.

Why not have additional academies to train young people to fight poverty by educating them in fields of study that are desperately needed in poor communities?  In exchange for free college tuition, they would serve five years working in these underserved neighborhoods as school administrators, social workers, teachers, and the like.  Their emphasis would be the children and the parents or guardians who raise them.  This holistic approach of offering support in both schools and homes would equip children with all the tools they need to compete, and by doing so, finally break the cycle of poverty that has plagued our nation for  centuries. 

We have always feared off-shore enemies, but we tend to underestimate the threats from within.  And perpetual poverty is definitely an enemy we need to fight with the same conviction we would fight an invading army.

Each academy could be focused on a particular field of social work or education.  Within five years we could have 25,000 or more talented young people in poor communities dedicated to helping children.  The entire infrastructure of poor communities could be transformed within a decade.

The military and its related military academies protect our economic and strategic interests worldwide.  These teaching and social work academies would protect these same interests at home.  In today’s global economy, the demand for intellectual capital is more essential than ever if a nation is to remain strong. 

Furthermore, by breaking the cycle of poverty we could reduce costly social programs like welfare.  A study by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services agency found that “families living in poverty were the least likely to have resources available to them” and “the more compromised these families are, the more likely it is that they eventually will come into contact with the child welfare or some other social system.”

The U.S. has the largest prison system in the world.  A study conducted by the State University of New York - Binghamton found that three decades ago the U.S. prison population was about one-eighth its current size.  Poverty breeds crime and creating better schools in poor neighborhoods supported by comprehensive social programs will offer young adults alternatives to criminal activities.  College and a lucrative career will no longer be considered unattainable. 

The expense of these academies would be far less than the money spent on traditional social programs and our prison system.

No one balks at the expense of running five military service academies and therefore, no one should question the merit of these academies of social work and education.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO EDUCATION DOES NOT EXIST IN AMERICA

All children in America will never be afforded an equal chance of succeeding in this world so long as the quality of education is so overwhelmingly determined by the individual wealth of each community. The best teachers and administrators are naturally going to gravitate to the school systems offering the highest salaries. The difference in pay scales can be alarming. A mediocre, physical education instructor in a middle-class community on Long Island can make double to triple what a gifted language arts instructor might get in a poor New York City community.

Wealth also brings better school programs and better educational tools as well. High-speed computers and other technology are pervasive in middle-class schools and very scarce in poor ones. Tutoring and other after-school programs in general are vastly better in affluent neighborhoods.

Much of the foundation of a good education begins at home. Again the disparity between rich and poor is even more pronounced. A typical middle-class kid lives in a sate neighborhood in a nice home being raised by a reasonably stable family with educated parents who possess the wherewithal to monitor and guide their young ones. On the other hand, many poor children grow up in dangerous neighborhoods, terrible housing, in broken families, and parents or guardians with little or no education, some do not even speak English. Even if these parents or guardians appreciate the value of education, they do not have the tools at their disposal to help their children at home.

Access to computers, calculators and other technological tools in middle-class homes are as common as milk in the refrigerator, while they are virtually non-existent in poor homes.

As a “C” student growing up in a middle-class community I know the value of these household advantages. My verbal skills were constantly being drilled into my head at home and reinforced simply by being around other educated peers in the community. You could not help but learn to communicate well. A poor child, on the other hand, surrounded by a myriad of languages including Ebonics is already at a tremendous disadvantage.

So how do you fix this uneven playing field? Before answering that, let me first say that nothing will work if the American public does not accept and embrace the fact that poor children are disadvantaged and be truly committed to addressing the problem with the tenacity and sacrifice we apply to going to war.

We seem to allocate a disproportionately high amount of our national resources to addressing what lies outside our borders. Just think of all the time and money we invest in space exploration and the relentless pursuit of new and better military weapons to be used against foreign enemies - real or imagined, and what impact these same resources could have on the quality of education for all of us.

I have two ideas for addressing the problem of education, one where we can emulate professional sports and the other the defense community. Of course, many readers will say both are unrealistic and maybe they are right. My reason for posing them is not to say whether they can be adopted in America, it is only to demonstrate that there are ways to solve the disparity in education if we have the will to do so. Surely we have the resources.

Professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey have all adopted a salary cap on how much each team can spend in total on their players. The goal is to give each team a relatively equal chance of winning. This prevents teams with disproportionately high revenues and payrolls from dominating their respective sports. The quality of the players are the raw material or commodity that principally dictates success or failure, just like faculty and administrators in each school system largely determine the success or failure of their school population. The idea is that although some teams may have to sacrifice a little, it makes the entire league stronger which ultimately benefits all teams.

So why not apply such a salary cap to each community’s school system regardless of their individual wealth? Like professional sports, some communities would have to make modest concessions, but in the end the entire nation would be enriched.

This would have to be applied to private schools as well to prevent an abandonment of public schools in affluent communities and a rise in private schools to circumvent these caps. The federal government would have to oversee and enforce this policy. Of course, there would be an uproar from wealthy communities, unions, and the like; but the bottom-line is that no individual or school system would suffer much if any of a decline in wages or education respectively, while the poorer communities would see a incredible improvement. Even if an affluent school system had a slight decline in the quality of their teaching staff, surely it could be off-set by their well educated parents at home.

The other idea borrows from our nation’s military service academies like West Point and Annapolis. These federal institutions offer a free, high-quality education in which each graduate has to pay back this debt to the country by serving in the armed forces for a predetermined period of time. This insures a steady influx of talented individuals to make sure our military is always at near optimum readiness.

Why not create an education academy for future teachers and administrators where graduates pay back their debt by working a set number of years in poor school systems with their salaries subsidized by the federal government?

Whether you agree with these proposals or not, one thing is certain: If the country truly desired to help poor children succeed and escape the spiral of poverty we have the means and resources necessary to do it. We just don’t seem to have the heart. It’s about time the public and the politicians stopped placing the blame here and there, and considered that the victims of our unfair education system are helpless children. They have no say in the quality of their education which largely determines success or failure in life, and yet they have to live with its consequences for a lifetime and pass this legacy on to their own children.