# Should public schools be managed and taught by the military? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2019, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552 "2019-05-26T14:12:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/61 "2019-05-28T17:06:51Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > We’re already there with that group, believe. The difference is that we are allowing them to drag as many people down with them as they can. You think 20% of Americans are fundamentally unsuited to life in society? 1 in 5? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/62 "2019-05-28T17:21:50Z")
The OP must be fucking joking the military can’t even run itself. And the OP’s view of the public school system seems to be garnered from some right-wing fantasy. The main problem with the public school system is that people aren’t willing to pay enough taxes to support their schools and rich neighborhoods’ school districts get too much. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/63 "2019-05-28T17:55:24Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > You think 20% of Americans are fundamentally unsuited to life in society? 1 in 5? Out of the subset I interact with daily, that’s an accurate estimation IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/64 "2019-05-28T18:45:43Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Now if you recall the movie “Stand and Deliver” where a tough as nails former miliary leader principal came and and turned around a failed Philadephia school, the idea has credit IF the school has gone totally over and teachers cannot teach because of mass chaos. First of all, as has been pointed out, wrong movie. Secondly, it was a damn movie, not real life. In real life, Joe Clark’s methods didn’t accomplish all that much, and the school had to be taken over by the state. Clark improved discipline in the short term - largely by expelling students en masse, which is easy and doesn’t really solve any problems - but test scores did not improve and such improvements as he made didn’t last. “Durrrrr, treat 'em like soldiers” is a dumb idea. The purpose of school is to educate, not just discipline. Discipline is just one of the many tools needed to ensure learning takes place. Making discipline the ends, instead of a means, means forgetting why you have schools in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/65 "2019-05-28T18:47:04Z")
Thing is in some schools you really do have about 1 in 5 kids who are nothing but idiots/jerks/troublemakers and cause massive problems and about the only way to make it so the 4 in 5 can learn is to somehow separate them. You can do it by creating a different school like a magnet system or kick them out (which your not allowed to do until age 21). Another is to basically run the school like a military school with tons of security and staff with strict rules and consequences but there is rarely a budget for that. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/66 "2019-05-28T19:01:39Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Out of the subset I interact with daily, that’s an accurate estimation IMHO. by nature or by nurture? As an adult business owner or patron, you are not expected to have to deal with those who have not learned to be productive members of society. As a school, you are expected to take people who are not productive members of society and turn them into productive members of society. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/67 "2019-05-28T20:10:26Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Thing is in some schools you really do have about 1 in 5 kids who are nothing but idiots/jerks/troublemakers and cause massive problems and about the only way to make it so the 4 in 5 can learn is to somehow separate them. How do you know that? Sounds like just a made up number based on watching movies. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/68 "2019-05-28T20:29:27Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I know who you are talking about! He came to Dallas next. Was a disaster. _wink_ ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/69 "2019-05-28T20:35:00Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Thing is in some schools you really do have about 1 in 5 kids who are nothing but idiots/jerks/troublemakers and cause massive problems and about the only way to make it so the 4 in 5 can learn is to somehow separate them. You can do it by creating a different school like a magnet system or kick them out (which your not allowed to do until age 21). Another is to basically run the school like a military school with tons of security and staff with strict rules and consequences but there is rarely a budget for that. Look, every kid deserves to learn. And yes, I’ve been in classrooms where a kid with severe trauma disrupts the class, and it freakin SUCKS, and a lot of learning is lost. But fantasizing about chasing such kids with sticks, presumably so they can be beaten if they don’t run fast enough? That’s loathsome. I am all for adequate funding of student support services. Sending soldiers after kids to commit violence is not student support. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/70 "2019-05-28T20:37:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > How do you know that? Sounds like just a made up number based on watching movies. I’ve never known confirmation bias to be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/71 "2019-05-28T22:45:37Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Look, every kid deserves to learn. And yes, I’ve been in classrooms where a kid with severe trauma disrupts the class, and it freakin SUCKS, and a lot of learning is lost. > > But fantasizing about chasing such kids with sticks, presumably so they can be beaten if they don’t run fast enough? That’s loathsome. > > I am all for adequate funding of student support services. Sending soldiers after kids to commit violence is not student support. I agree that the way 1980’s Nigerian military responded to a problem was harsh. My point was that at a certain point one has to do something different and often radical. You might have been in a single classroom with some bad kids but I’ve seen whole schools full of them with an administration that does nothing and the teachers just cannot teach because the place is chaos. The students learn almost nothing and the good ones eventually end up leaving. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/72 "2019-05-28T23:06:09Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > an administration that does nothing Perhaps the administration should be taken out back and beaten with sticks? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/73 "2019-05-28T23:16:37Z")
> [@l0k1](#): > > DC pubic schools. Do they also teach the Non-Intercourse Act in history class? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) > **[Non-Intercourse Act (1809)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Intercourse_Act_(1809))** > > In the last sixteen days of President Thomas Jefferson's presidency, the Congress replaced the Embargo Act of 1807 with the almost unenforceable Non-Intercourse Act of March 1809. This Act lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports. Its intent was to damage the economies of the United Kingdom and France. Like its predecessor, the Embargo Act, it was mostly ineffective, and contributed to the coming of the War of 1812. In addition, it seriously dam... ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/74 "2019-05-28T23:25:04Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Thing is in some schools you really do have about 1 in 5 kids who are nothing but idiots/jerks/troublemakers and cause massive problems and about the only way to make it so the 4 in 5 can learn is to somehow separate them. You can do it by creating a different school like a magnet system or kick them out (which your not allowed to do until age 21). Another is to basically run the school like a military school with tons of security and staff with strict rules and consequences but there is rarely a budget for that. My old town had an “alternative school” that was really not much more than a warehouse for kids like this. They didn’t take attendance or do lesson plans, and when it moved from a downtown building to an unused elementary school building in a middle-class neighborhood, the neighbors successfully petitioned to have it moved back because of (among other things) all the drug dealers who openly hung around all day. I knew a few people who worked there (they all had their own reasons for choosing to do so) and the one thing they all agreed on was that they believed that the school should have a gynecologist and a urologist on retainer, to sterilize all the students on admission. :eek: This was in a city of 40,000 in rural Illinois, no less. I told that story to a woman I know who teaches at a regular HS in my area, and she told me that the alt-schools here have stricter rules than the regular schools, so kids won’t want to go there. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/75 "2019-05-29T00:49:10Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I agree that the way 1980’s Nigerian military responded to a problem was harsh. Good? > [@](#): > > My point was that at a certain point one has to do something different and often radical. You might have been in a single classroom with some bad kids but I’ve seen whole schools full of them Ima stop you right there. No I haven’t, and no you haven’t. If you think you have, then all I can guarantee is that your students have been in a classroom with an unfit teacher. They aren’t bad kids. Look, we’re talking about people too young to make decisions well. We don’t allow them to vote, or to join the military, or to sign contracts, or to drink, because we recognize that they’re not fully responsible for their behavior. It’s incumbent on the adults around them to provide them a context in which they learn how to make good decisions. AND BEATING THEM WITH STICKS IS NOT THAT GD CONTEXT. Yes, we need to do something radical. Fortunately, we know some things we can do: 1. Make it practically harder for them to access guns, through appropriate firearms legislation. 2. Address the kinds of structural inequalities that incentivize violent crime. 3. Address ACES, specifically the trauma that comes from living in a high-violence context. This last one is going to involve school measures (adequately staffing social workers, counselors, and psychologists) and community measures (similar to step 2). It might not satisfy vengeance fantasies of angry ex-teachers in the way that imagining beating children with sticks would, but it’d got a damn sight further in actually fixing the very real problem. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/76 "2019-05-29T03:02:02Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I just wanted to put out this story told to me years ago by a friend from Nigeria. > > It seemed that a major high school in Legos Nigeria had gotten out of control. Students turned it into toal chaos. Well the military DID go in and (sort of) take over. I dont think they had anything to do with instruction or curriculum but they DEFINITELY were in charge of discipline. For example any student causing trouble was immediately taken outside and dealt with. For example they had to hoist a brick over their head and run around the school while soldiers with sticks chased them. You can bet that pretty soon every student toed the line. > > Now if you recall the movie “Stand and Deliver” where a tough as nails former miliary leader principal came and and turned around a failed Philadephia school, the idea has credit IF the school has gone totally over and teachers cannot teach because of mass chaos. > > So I think their are times it might be needed. Not to be nit-picky, but this has been driving me nuts. The capital of Nigeria is L_a_gos, not Legos. It’s a huge city with a population of around 17 million people, none of whom live in buildings made of interlocking plastic bricks. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/77 "2019-05-29T03:16:11Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It might not satisfy vengeance fantasies of angry ex-teachers in the way that imagining beating children with sticks would, but it’d got a damn sight further in actually fixing the very real problem. Teachers love to bitch–and for some reason, when you are a teacher, non-teachers are endlessly fascinated by stories of horrible children. I don’t know why, but so many people seem to find comfort in lurid tales of Kids These Days. So you get in this terrible feedback cycle where you get all this positive reinforcement for your ranty, hyperbolic stories which non-teachers then use to speak authoritatively about what it’s like in schools these days. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/78 "2019-05-29T03:36:03Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Not to be nit-picky, but this has been driving me nuts. The capital of Nigeria is L_a_gos, not Legos. It’s a huge city with a population of around 17 million people, none of whom live in buildings made of interlocking plastic bricks. > > Carry on. Nigeria’s capitol has been Abuja since 1991. > **[Abuja](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuja)** > > Abuja (/əˈbuːdʒə/) is the capital and eighth most populous city of Nigeria. Situated in the middle of the country within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), it is a planned city built mainly in the 1980s based on a master plan by International Planning Associates (IPA), a consortium of three American planning and architecture firms made up of Wallace, Roberts, McHarg & Todd (WRMT – a group of architects) as the lead, Archi systems International (a subsidiary of the Howard Hughes Abuja's geo... Let’s return to our regularly scheduled programming. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/79 "2019-05-29T11:14:41Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Just in some cases. Kids who need more discipline than the usual population. You know, the Nigerians. Why he’d want[these kids](https://itpulse.com.ng/2019/01/23/nigerian-unity-schools-shine-at-robotics-competition/) beaten is beyond me… ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552/80 "2019-05-29T11:18:24Z")
Uh-oh, nelliebly got the city wrong. That’s a stick-chasing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-public-schools-be-managed-and-taught-by-the-military/834552.md?page=5)