The Pentagon’s signature program for instilling military values in American schools, the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), has a history dating to 1916. But in recent years, it has endured more bad press than at any point since the 1970s.

In a series of articles throughout 2022, the New York Times revealed the structure of what is wrong with high school military training: instructors who use their positions to prey on teenage girls, in-school shooting ranges built with grants from the National Rifle Association, and mandatory enrollment in some of the nation’s largest school districts.

These revelations have vindicated those in the counter-recruitment movement who for years warned of a largely unsupervised program taught by retired military officers. It also raises serious questions about whether military training programs have any place in US public high schools.