No Poor Child Left Unrecruited: How NCLB Codifies and Perpetuates Urban School Militarism

A critical theoretical framework is used to analyze the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation and its role in codifying and perpetuating educational practices and policies that contribute to growing campus militarism in urban schools serving low-income African American and Latino students. The author argues that NCLB § 9528 is part of a broader strategy by the Pentagon to recruit low-income urban youth for the military. The article examines how NCLB's focus on standardized tests and punitive sanctions reinforces urban schools' already narrow curriculum, leading to the diminished capacity of students to question militarism and challenge social oppression.