If ACT scores are any gauge, students in the Madison Metropolitan School District are pretty smart. Really smart, in fact. During the 2006-07 school year, students at the district's high schools recorded an average of 24.6 (out of 36) on the standardized test. This easily trumped the statewide average of 22.3, which in turn outpaced the national average of 21.2.
Alas, as anyone familiar with the NFL scouting combine or the movie "300" can tell you, numbers don't always mean a whole lot. Flashy test scores and all, Madison high school students are actually pretty dumb. Really dumb, in fact.
Or at least that seems to be the argument from dozens of protesters who gathered for several hours at the school board's meeting earlier this week. They're mad because the Madison School District — in an audacious attempt at revenue generation — finalized a three-year pact this summer to sell advertising space near the scoreboards at the district's high school gymnasiums and football fields to a particular organization.
The organization? The U.S. Army. The protesters? Assorted community members who have an interesting take on the mental faculties of the young adults traveling the halls of East, West, Memorial and La Follette.
Emblematic of those against the deal is a group called Truth and Alternatives to Militarism in Education, an organization that on its website bemoans: "Children are more gullible and susceptible to all forms of advertising." In a letter to The Capital Times, several members of TAME suggested the existence of the ads will stoke "the adolescent desire to prove oneself through physical challenge." Another of the group's members, David Hoppee, spoke of the sensory overload that often overwhelms viewers of signs, telling Channel 3000: "It’s too much… They’re children — let them alone."
Yet another protester was West High School science teacher John Rademacher, who, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, boldly participated in the rally against the Army's exploitation of children by dressing up his own 6- and 7-year-old sons in shirts saying “Don’t Sell Me Out” and "Ads Influence Me."
The truth is that Madison high school students — including, one day, Mr. Rademacher's children — are not going to blindly join the military simply because a sign at a sporting event alerted them to the possibility. If interested, they will talk to recruiters. They will consult their parents. They will consider in-depth the benefits and potential drawbacks of military service. They'll assess their academic and career aspirations. To suggest students considering enlistment will do any less is to do a serious disservice to their abilities to ably lead their lives as they see fit.
At the same time, the school benefits on multiple fronts from the Army advertising deal. First, it gains financially. While the sum for the three-year agreement, about $18,000, is surely small in the scheme of its overall budget, every bit helps for a district that has been in need of money in recent years. Secondly, along with visits by recruiters (which the schools must permit by law anyway), the district helps provide students with information concerning a viable post-graduation opportunity.
To be sure, the school's agreement with the Army should not be construed as a promotion of it over other opportunities for students. Nothing in the school district's policies prevents other employers from doing exactly what the Army did — coming forward with an offer to pay money in exchange for advertising space.
The people fighting these ads know all of this. If pressed, they would even admit students are not as "gullible" or clueless as they make them out to be. Their opposition to the ads, rather, is a reflection of an unbending hatred toward the military — a hostility betrayed by an utter inability to grasp why a rational person would ever contemplate joining what they view as an evil and life-sucking organization.
The school board was unable to take up the issue of the Army deal at its meeting this week, as it wasn't on the agenda. Still, its members have defended their decision to reach the agreement with the Army. They should continue to do so. Sentiment in Madison may lean anti-war, but aside from a few radicals, it is not an anti-military town. Most importantly, it's a town that produces some pretty smart kids. They can handle a few advertisements.
Ryan Masse ([email protected]) is a first-year law student.
