Pentagon may stop running stateside schools for military children

[nitpicker]

https://www.militarytimes.com/newsletters/pay-benefits/2017/11/13/pentagon-may-stop-running-state-side-schools-for-military-children/

Pentagon may stop running stateside schools for military children

By: Karen Jowers ?  12 hours ago

The Trump administration is considering a plan to end the military’s longtime operation of schools for military children on dozens of stateside military bases, part of a broader push to cut costs and reduce the size of the federal workforce, according to information obtained by Military Times.

The military currently operates 47 schools on military installations in seven states in the continental U.S., serving a total of about 20,000 students. The proposal, which has support from some parts of the Pentagon, would turn over operation of those schools to local school districts. The proposed “divestiture” of Defense Department stateside schools would not impact the Defense Department-run schools overseas, according to officials familiar with the proposal but who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

The change would be implemented in phases, according to a source familiar with the plan, and officials would first test the idea at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, which has an elementary school and a middle/high school on the installation, with a total enrollment of about 1,000 children. Then officials would “employ the lessons learned” and turn over the remaining schools in the continental U.S.. The 2017 Defense Department budget included about $600 million to operate Department of Defense Education Activity schools on 15 installations in the U.S., but that also includes five schools in Cuba and Puerto Rico, which would presumably not be affected by the closures currently under discussion.
(snip)

Previous studies on the feasibility of transferring DoD schools to local schools have found that there is a cost required to do so. This reform plan suggests shifting the money used to operate stateside DoD schools to support local school districts. It notes that the plan would also affect approximately 36,000 employees employed by or in support of stateside DoD schools.

Historically, military families and commanders have been supportive of these schools on U.S. bases which are concentrated in the South, and have even asked for more DoD schools in some locations, citing their high level of quality compared to the local public schools adjacent to some military installations. Others, however, criticize the schools as private academies for the privileged few who live on certain installations or an anachronism dating back to the segregation era, when local school districts would not accept minority children.
(snip)

The adjacent school districts tend to be low-performing, the RAND researchers reported, “and although military-connected students have favorable characteristics that might help them perform better than these [local education agency] averages, there is a concern that current [students in stateside DoD schools] would experience lower quality if the adjacent LEAS provide their education either under contract or by transfer of responsibility.”

[underpants]

1. I had no idea we did that

Seems odd in this day and age.