Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps - Organization

Organization

Each branch of the US Armed Forces maintains a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, organized into units. As of June 2006, there are a total of 3,229 units:

• 1555 Army AJROTC units
• 794 Air Force AFJROTC units
• 619 Navy NJROTC units
• 260 Marine Corps MCJROTC units
• 1 Coast Guard CGJROTC unit

Prior to 1967 the number of units was limited to 1,200. The cap was increased to 1,600 units in 1967 and again to 3,500 units in 1992; the statutory limitation on the number of units was struck from the law in 2001. Their goal is to reach 3,500 units by FY 2011 by encouraging program expansion into educationally and economically deprived areas.

Units are set up according to the layout of their parent service, often referred to as the "Chain of Command." Army and Marine Corps JROTC units follow the battalion, or in cases of larger size, brigade structure. Air Force JROTC units are composed structurally based on size (wing if more than 251 cadets, group if more than 101, squadron if more than 51). Navy JROTC typically follows the company (100-149 cadets), battalion (150-299 cadets), or regiment (300+ cadets) structure depending on the size of the unit.

JROTC is partly funded by the United States Department of Defense with an allocation in the military budget of about 340 million dollars for the fiscal year 2007, of which about 68 million are personnel costs. The federal government subsidizes instructor salaries, cadet uniforms, equipment and textbooks. The instructors, usually retired military personnel, continue to receive retirement pay from the Federal government, but in addition, the schools pay the difference from what the instructors would receive if they were on active duty. The service concerned then reimburses the school for approximately one-half of the amount paid by the school to the instructor.

Although active duty officers may be assigned, most instructors are retired from the sponsoring branch of the Armed Forces. In the Army JROTC program, the cadet unit at each school is directed by at least one retired commissioned officer, a Senior Army Instructor (SAI), (in the grade of Captain through Colonel) or a Warrant Officer (WO1 through CW5) and at least one retired Non-Commissioned Officer, an Army Instructor (AI), (in the grade of Staff Sergeant through Command Sergeant Major). In certain situations there may be additional instructors. Retired general or flag officers are generally not permitted to work as JROTC instructors. Neither are retired National Guard personnel permitted to work as JROTC instructors. A new provision from the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (Section 540) was signed into law in October 2006, permitting retired Reserve officers and noncommissioned officers to be hired as instructors.

There are no national requirements that JROTC instructors have the teaching credential required by other teachers in public high school. In at least one jurisdiction (California), the government requires JROTC instructors to have at least four years of military experience and possess a high school diploma or equivalent. AJROTC instructors need to be within one year of retirement or retired from active military service for three or fewer years. MCJROTC instructors need to have graduated from high school, have at least 20 years of active military service and be physically qualified according to Marine Corps standards. AFJROTC requires minimum 20 years of active duty; Officer instructors need to have a minimum of a bachelors degree, while a high school diploma or equivalent is sufficient for enlisted instructors. For AJROTC the Non-commissioned Officer has to attain an Associates Degree (AA), with teaching credential, in order to be assigned an AI. To be assigned as a SAI the AJROTC Instructor has to hold a BA degree, with teaching credentials. NJROTC also requires a minimum of 20 years of active military duty; the minimum education requirement for an instructor is a high school diploma or equivalent, with a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university required for a senior instructor. The Navy requires that JROTC instructors be employees of the school and that they are accorded the same status as other school faculty members. National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) offers similar programs as JROTC. NDCC units differ from JROTC in that they receive little or no financial support from the Armed Forces; uniforms, equipment, other materials and instructor salaries must normally be furnished by the school hosting an NDCC program. Except for the funding aspects, JROTC and NDCC programs are virtually identical, although the cadet corps is not limited by the federal statute that restricts JROTC to offering courses only for students in ninth through 12th grades. Per 2005, Chicago had 26 Middle School Cadet Corps enlisting more than 850 kids.