Demilitarizing What the Pentagon Knows about Developing Young People: A New Paradigm for Educating Students who are Struggling in School and in Life. CCF Working Paper

This working paper examines the approaches, wisdom, and experience generated by the ChalleNGe program, as well as the vast storehouse of knowledge and research, models and systems possessed by the military services that are potentially applicable to educating and developing youngsters who are at greatest risk of academic failure, economic marginality, and outright poverty. The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program is a quasi-military residential corps for school dropouts. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether these approaches show sufficient promise that they might work for these young people, not whether there is solid proof that they actually do work. It focuses on the military because the United States military enjoys a well-deserved reputation for its ability to reach, teach, and develop young people who are rudderless, and for setting the pace among American institutions in advancing minorities. Young people receive military-style education and training in an array of settings, most typically in a branch of the military. Various branches also partner with public schools to operate programs that emulate the military atmosphere and methods. This paper poses questions and positive ideas about unconventional ways of educating youngsters who are struggling and of organizing schools that might be equipped---conceptually, academically, and operationally---to give them a better shot at success in life. Far from etched in stone, the ideas advanced here are offered to spur a vigorous search for innovative new strategies to rescue youngsters who have virtually disappeared from society's radar screen. (Contains 1 table and 137 endnotes.) [Additional support was provided by the Taconic Foundation.]