By unanimous vote, the entire faculty at Garfield High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test of reading and mathematics.

This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the faculty of an entire school refused to give mandated tests.

The action of the Garfield High School faculty could have national ramifications because it shows other teachers that there is strength in unity and that they do not have to endure unethical demands with passivity and resignation.

For their courage, their integrity, and their intelligence, I add the faculty of Garfield High School to the honor roll as champions of public education.

The teachers agreed that the tests are a waste of time and money. Students don’t take them seriously because they don’t count toward their grades. But teachers will be evaluated based on the results of these tests that students don’t take seriously. Even the organization that created the tests say they should not be used for teacher evaluation, but the district requires them anyway.

I hope that the example set by Garfield High School will resonate in school districts across the United States and around the world. High-stakes testing is bad for students, bad for teachers, and bad for education.

Seth Kershner -

Although women make up about half of the United States workforce, they represent just 24 percent of careers in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In order to correct this, major nonprofit groups have been organizing STEM enrichment camps for middle- and high-school girls, driven by the philosophy that more women will pursue STEM careers if their interest is piqued at an early age.

But recently, some girls-only STEM programs have gone beyond fostering interest in science and math among the next generation of women. Branches of the U.S. military—in particular, the Navy—have increasingly been using these programs to market the military to girls as young as 11 and 12.

Founded in 1974, Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) organizes dozens of STEM conferences for middle- and high-school girls each year. According to its website, the EYH “recently had the opportunity to partner with the Navy and learn about careers where young women are underrepresented.” They give girls the following pitch: “You probably never gave much thought to having a career with the United States Navy. Many girls don’t.… We want to introduce you to several inspiring professional women who are currently active in the Navy and serve on aircraft carriers, who serve as Navy divers, or who serve in other interesting Navy careers.” Accompanying the text is a handy-dandy link to the Navy’s recruiting website.

November 9, 2012 / Preston Sprinkle / Jesus Creed - Are American Evangelicals Seduced by Militarism? Is militarism consistent with Christian faith?

American militarism. The very phrase evokes a cacophony of responses from the public, not least from the American Evangelical church. It’s undeniable that America is becoming more and more militarized, as several recent books have pointed out (e.g. Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism; Rachel Maddow, Drift). Some Evangelicals are quick to celebrate America’s military prowess—the bigger the better—while others see it as dangerous, if not idolatrous. For reasons state in this post and the next, I believe the latter: the American Evangelical church is largely (not completely) seduced by military might.

But what is “Militarism?” According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, “Militarism” is:

    [T]he belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

By “militarism,” therefore, I do not mean “the people participating in the military” (I myself come from a long line of Marines), but the overarching “belief or desire” of having a strong military to protect or advance national or religious interests. Not every member of the military, as several of my military friends have told me, actually buy into the overarching agenda of militarism.

Aaron B. O’Connell -

NOTE: NNOMY does not endorse the assumptions about the impact of militarization on the U.S. economy outlined in this article but chooses to repost it to highlight concerns for the desensitization of his students towards war expressed by a professor of history in a military university.

IN 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office warning of the growing power of the military-industrial complex in American life. Most people know the term the president popularized, but few remember his argument.

In his farewell address, Eisenhower called for a better equilibrium between military and domestic affairs in our economy, politics and culture. He worried that the defense industry’s search for profits would warp foreign policy and, conversely, that too much state control of the private sector would cause economic stagnation. He warned that unending preparations for war were incongruous with the nation’s history. He cautioned that war and warmaking took up too large a proportion of national life, with grave ramifications for our spiritual health.

Genevieve Weber/Corvallis Advocate -

War is a touchy subject, especially given the near-palpable tension of the upcoming presidential election. If you’re against war, you’re a hippy at best, anti-military and unpatriotic at worst. If you’re for it, you’re pro-violence, anti-peace, an extreme conservative… Basically, you’re either too fat or too skinny, and the middle ground is essentially a wasteland. I’m not anti-military as we now know it, although there are certainly myriad issues. I do think increasing military spending when the military isn’t even asking for it, while cutting all sorts of important and necessary social programs, is absolutely ridiculous. But that’s neither here nor there.

There are some aspects of our military that are more controversial than others, and some issues really hit home—mainly because they’re happening here. When your teenaged son or daughter reports they conversed with a US military recruiter in the hall of their high school, you may experience mixed emotions. Maybe you feel socially obligated to support the military (or maybe you’re all for or against it), but you don’t want your child exposed to this particular career path. School administrators experience this same juxtaposition of thought—the men and women who recruit high school students may be exemplary human beings, and they’re simply doing their jobs. But recruiters are also asking young people to make decisions that studies suggest they aren’t ready to make, and, since it is their job to recruit people into the military, recruiters may not provide all necessary risk information to students.