STARBASE rally TONIGHT!

After a delay to get more information, the school board is once again poised to approve the STARBASE program, which sells the military access to fourth and fifth graders for a couple hundred thousand dollars. The rally is at 6pm Monday at district headquarters, 501 N. Dixon Street.

From the event’s Facebook announcement:

Come out to testify against or bear witness as the Portland Public School Board votes to allow military recruitment, under the guise of science education, of our children in grades K-5.

Military bases are not designed for children, they are not playgrounds.

Military bases, including our local Armory, store toxic materials and jet fuels; not safe for children.

We are a country at war, military bases are not safe places for civilians, especially children, during wartime. They are targets.

Military personnel returning from active duty may suffer unpredictable and often violent behavior as a result of service. Luckily no children were injured on the base in Texas when such an incident occurred.

Of the 18 schools participating in this program all but 4 are Title 1 schools. All but three have higher percentages of minority students, and all but four have higher poverty.

Violence is on the increase in our public schools and culture. Exposing our young, impressionable children to exciting, high tech, high powered, weapons will not help in our struggle to move toward a more tolerant and peaceful society.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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