Oh, That's What "No Child Left Behind" Means!

I have to admit that I haven't been paying much attention to Education issues and it's mostly because I don't have kids. However, recent events have widened the scope of news I'm following. And, I apologize in advance if you know about this already.

Over at Debra Gallant's Barista, there's an interesting discussion surrounding the spotting of military recruiters outside an affluent middle-class high school in New Jersey. Some of the comments, which you should check out, sent me off to google a particular aspect of the "No Child Left Behind" legislation. Here's what I found:

Sharon Shea-Keneally, principal of Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, was shocked when she received a letter in May from military recruiters demanding a list of all her students, including names, addresses, and phone numbers. The school invites recruiters to participate in career days and job fairs, but like most school districts, it keeps student information strictly confidential. "We don't give out a list of names of our kids to anybody," says Shea-Keneally, "not to colleges, churches, employers -- nobody."

But when Shea-Keneally insisted on an explanation, she was in for an even bigger surprise: The recruiters cited the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush's sweeping new education law passed earlier this year. There, buried deep within the law's 670 pages, is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student -- or face a cutoff of all federal aid.

Apparently, there's an opt-out, according to commenter GC at Barista:

NO the NCLB does not give the military blanket access to your children's information. Request (demand) that the high school give you the opt out form. If you sign that, the school is prohibited from giving your kids' names, phone #s etc to the military. It's worth the two minutes to fill out the form... my friends' sons are hounded relentlessly by the military. And, they don't want to hear from Mommy that Sonny can't come to the phone, is away at college, or ran away to join the circus. They just keep calling and calling and calling. If they get the kid on the phone, they are VERY high pressure. Fill out the form!!

Comments

[Johnny Huh?]

I'd like to say I'm surprised that No Child Left Behind actually means No Child Will Be Left Behind When We Reinstate The Draft and I am, on some levels.

This scares the crap out of me and bodes incredibly poorly that no one even picked up on this until now. This would have been dynamite to beat Bush with during the debates but is now just another part of the laws supposedly written to help us but are being used to further cow and control us.

This information needs to be spread and I think that I will do what part I can by taking it to MetaFilter. Thanks for posting this, it is important news.

[Former SGT Nelson]

Gee, have you considered asking them not to call back, and getting the name of their commander or first sargeant?

If you are concerned about the gov't knowing everything about you, or the three major credit tracking agencies, or the utilities, or ...

Well. Gigs up. Time to panic, run off into the freeway.

[Keith]

Asking them not to call back doesn't work. Going through their chain of command is a waste of time. A recruiter is someone who messed up so bad at some point in their military career that the only thing they are good for anymore is lying to kids fresh out of high school. They are told to lie and bully kids into signing contracts. Anyone who tries to tell you that they are very selective about who they will accept has never been into a recruiting center.

[tas]

Former Sgt. Nelson, with all due respect, military recruiters are assholes. I remember dealing with them during and after high school, and no matter how many times I told them I wasn't interested, asked them to stop calling, and even told them that I was gay when I really wasn't, they just kept calling. One time I picked up the phone, found out it was a recruiter, and promptly hung up. He called back a second later and left a message on my answer machine about how rude I was.

I certainly do not want these types of people having full access to the records of high student students just so they can constantly harass them.

[Sheelzebub]

Sgt. N: The point is, the army is demanding the names and contact info to minors when the minors and their families didn't know this could be a possibility. And getting bugged about magazine subscriptions is far different from getting hounded about signing up for the military.

Not to mention the fact that it's cynical and disgusting that funding would depend on the schools assist the government in its recruiting efforts and compromising their privacy. I've always thought the individual "opt-out" was a cop-out--no matter *who* the marketers are (government, non-profit, or commercial), they should assume we don't want to hear from them unless we specifically ask. We shouldn't have to "opt-out" of jack.

This kind of crap makes dropping off the radar look more attractive by the minute.

[Right of Center]

Sheelzebub,

So basically you are saying that the average Left of Center suburbanite should not have to opt-out of civic duty, it should just be assumed?

[Sheelzebub]

Right of Center: Civic duty is signing up for selective service, not getting harrassed by telemarketing calls from military recruiters. There's a huge difference.

[Right of Center]

Roxanne has made the point that we should all do our bit. If the nation is at war isn't it the *least* we can do to take the nation's recruitment phone calls? Is it too much of a burden?

[Roxanne]

Actually, my point was that if you believe in the war, voted for Bush, beat your chest whenever the word "Iraq" is mentioined, the VERY LEAST you could do is do "your bit."

[Dave]

Just checked out the comments over at B.

They're so so right.

If you were a better writer perhaps you could get a job blogging (wasting away) at a 3rd rate community rag in North Carolina.

[bily bob]

yes my name is realy billy bob so dont make fun of me like everyone else

[Shari]

The last post was 2005, so I'll leave this for the next guy who figures out that No Child Left Behind, means "No Child left off the computer generated list". I heard rumors that Pres. Bush's brother or uncle, or 3rd cousin, who cares, had a financial investment in the testing service to public schools. I worked as a paralegal for White House lawyers, so I'm ahead of the game. The American public needs to call a duck a duck. No Child Left Behind is another scam to get your child's name on a computer database for their entire life, so they can track them from inside and locate them at any time. Which would make Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson throw up.

The Draft just evolves into a military recruiter ringing your doorbell and getting a one-on-one intimidation going on, replete with salestalk about blind patriotism and compassion at a time when they are young, naive, and confused about the world. I think I was confused until I was 40. The veterans cemeteries are filled with people who never had the chance to reach 40.

A standing military is the backbone of the nation. You don't take that backbone and ram into into a wall then expect a new backbone to appear. The Revolution was fought by poor people lured from Europe, and when they got here, found out it wasn't what they were told, and they were given a gun and told what the job was. They used this tactic for 100 years.

Charles Rangle is worried that rich people aren't sharing the sacrafice. No duh. He thinks if he reinstates the draft, that rich people will fight wars. NO. Rich people get poor people to fight wars. That's how it has always worked, draft or no draft. Rich people "create" wars for poor people to fight. They take nice peaceful people minding their own business and tell them to go fight a war, and only a few come back.

Then rich people stand around going "well, it's your fault". The exclusivity of the rich and powerful to create war is the problem. So if you're planning wars for the future, you need to put all the poor people on a database and keep track of them. That's the modern version of the same old tired story.

Then a couple of heavy-hitting recruiters show up and fast talk your stupid kid into signing up. Then you're supposed to be proud and fly a flag on your lawn, and everybody gets a good old fashioned feeling of patriot pride on the 4th of July. Unfortunately, Johnny isn't going to be having any barbeque chicken. Cause Johnny is dead, but he was brave anyway. And now, it's Johnny and Jane.

OK, who want's to march into Moscow in Winter? Napoleon sent thousands of young Frenchmen straight to Moscow in Winter, where they all dropped dead. The Russian archeologists are right now, doing excavations on the area and retrieving all the buttons and brass and weapons.

It's always going to be same until people on the planet learn to live with each other in a rational world. And as long as we have irrational crazy people running around promoting their lunatic ideas, we have to implement rational solutions that work - like "isolation and internal integrity".

I ran across a book written about terrorists, in 1965. Until 1965, the world dealt with potential terrorists by picking them off one by one, not by dismantling society, which is their objective in the first place. And certainly not by allowing them to set up business in your country then wait for them to attack it. Roll back the clock. Tell them to pack up and leave.

What happened to "we're fighting them on their own territory so we don't have to fight them here?" Why are they even here in the first place? Who let them in?