Public Military Academies: Prep Schools? Or Blatant Recruitment Pools?

Matthew Hartman had every intention of enlisting in the Army directly after his graduation in two years. But it was Col. Sterling Stokes and his military staff who convinced Hartman that college, not the battlefield, was a better option. At least for now.

"They persuaded me that there is always time to serve my country and that maybe I would be able to serve even better if I went to college first," Hartman, 16, says.

The Richmond, Va., native is a junior at the Franklin Military Academy in Richmond, where Stokes is principal. He earned the highest score on the 2008 National Chemistry Olympiad in his school, and is the type of student college admissions counselors would like to see among their applicants.

But for Cadet Hartman, the military seemed like a natural progression.

Academies like Franklin Military are part of the country's rapidly expanding Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. The academies are exclusively JROTC and the Department of Defense helps fund them -- part of a growing trend to introduce military schools into the public school system in primarily poor urban areas where many school systems are struggling, if not failing.

These academies aren't boot camps for delinquents. There is no compulsory military service upon graduation. And they're not the realization of the Bush administration's machinations. In fact, administrators insist the academies are college prep schools.

But for many, the evidence isn't so clear. Critics like Darlene Graminga, of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker pacifist organization, suggest that cases like Hartman's are few and far between, and that the military academies are a veiled attempt to recruit American youth.

Graminga, program director of the group's Truth in Recruiting Program, says, "I hardly doubt that it's a coincidence that these schools are prospering at a time of war."

Despite such concerns, public military academies are wildly popular among many parents and students.

Chicago -- with more academies than any other city -- can't build them fast enough. Chicago's sixth academy will open this fall. In all, the city has one-third of the country's academies.

Each year, the Chicago Public Schools accepts only about 10 percent of academy applicants. For the 2007-2008 school year, approximately 7,500 students applied for 700 openings in the freshman class.

Extending JROTC

Military academies are part of the JROTC program that began in 1916. Former Secretary of State and retired Gen. Colin Powell is credited with advancing JROTC in its current form, in part by influencing then-President George H.W. Bush in 1992 to more than double the size of the program, from 1,500 JROTC programs to 3,500.

In his book, My American Journey, Powell wrote: "Inner-city kids, many from broken homes, found stability and role models in Junior ROTC. They got a taste of discipline, the work ethic, and they experienced pride of membership in something healthier than a gang. … Junior ROTC is a social bargain."

In Virginia, the Richmond School Board and its Superintendent Richard Hunter conceptualized Franklin Military Academy -- the country's first secondary military academy -- on the heels of the Vietnam War in the late '70s. It opened its doors to 130 freshmen in the fall of 1980.

The following year, academies opened in St. Louis and Sandy Hook, N.J. After a 16-year gap, the Kenosha Military Academy in Wisconsin was built in 1998. Since then, the academies have grown at a rate of one to two a year.

"Students have to make the choice on their own to be here," says Stokes, Franklin's principal.

Once a student makes that first step, the application process is rigorous, including an interview and a written commitment from the parents, as well as the student.