Deanna TaylorNo Child Left Unrecruited
It’s that time of year: The beginning of school. Ah, yes, the homework grind, hearing from teachers on your child’s progress, getting the kids to bed early, and learning that your child now wants to enlist in the military after talking to recruiters in school.
(music somes to a screeching halt).
Did you know “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB) requires schools to hand over
student rosters and records to Armed Forces Recruiter or face stiff
penalties AND loss of federal funding?
I first discovered this clause when I heard about NCLB 4 1/2 years ago and began actually reading the document (you can read all about it at:NCLB). It was my husband, Tom, who actually discovered Sec. 9528. Also included in this section is the very tiny mention of the “opt out” that parents can request (and must do so EACH year their child is in high school). There is a caveat, however: Parents must create an opt out letter on their own. Needless to say, I immediately formulated a letter requesting that my son’s records not be released to the military and sent it to his school district and to his school. After a Salt Lake Tribune reporter conducted an investigation on this issue, I discovered I was the only parent in our entire school district who had taken advantage of the “opt out” provision in sec.9528 at the time. Proponents of the NCLB sec. 9528 state that this opt out provision is sufficient in providing an alternative to parents and students who do not want the military to have their information. But the wording is too vague.
The clause states, “(2) CONSENT – A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student’s name, address, and telephone listing described in paragraph (1) not be released without prior written parental consent, and
the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request.â€
However, schools do not inform parents of this option and parents receive so much information at the beginning of each school year that IF the opt out clause is even mentioned, they miss it. I know, because at the start of my son’s last year in high school I looked for information on it. There was one sentence, in very tiny print, at the bottom of a two sided form that contained much text on both sides.
Seriously, how many of you parents out there actually read, word for word, every single document that comes home at the beginning of each school year? Many parents in our state work more than one job to make ends meet. When they arrive home from their jobs, they very often do not have the energy to read every single form their children bring home for them to read and sign.
But wait, there’s more.! Because the NCLB mandate requires schools to allow recruiters the same opporutnities to students as colleges and trade in schools, military recruiters feel they then have the fuel to make schools think that they can just show up unannounced in schools. This is not true and there are alternatives which I would be happy to share and may do so as a follow up to this post. Many parents and even schools are so afraid of the school losing funding that they are not aware of their rights and turn the other cheek when recruiters become pushy in this regard.
It is bad enough that our tax dollars are being spent on illegal acts of agression by the U.S. Administration, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Incorporating a military provision into an educational act is completely absurd. While our money is being spent on illegal acts of agression, our children suffer due to lack of money for basic education and mandated educational provisions lacking the funding to properly implement them. Additionally, many Americans suffer and die due to lack of affordable health care.
Our children are being targeted through schools. Schools are no longer considered a “safe” place in which to learn and play and discover and grow. Schools have now become a market place for the U.S. Military. I emphatically urge citizens everywhere to stand up and demand that this end. Opt your child out of her/his records being handed over. Write to your legislators and urge them to amend NCLB to delete sec. 9528 from it. Tell your family, neighbors and friends about this provision in the NCLB. Develop counter-recruitment projects and implement them in your schools (I can provide information on that). Educate your children. No Child must be left behind. Every child must be protected. This military madness must cease and desist.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:08 am
Sadly as the “Good Germans” in 38, progressive Americans cannot believe it is true. Even a change of control from REp to DEM, does WHAT? Near all DEMS voted for disaster lock, stock, and barrel.
What none of ya’ll want to accept is that is is a DICTATORSHIP!
From black boxes, vote slimy foxes
to rumor of war, and oil soaked whore
to people in pieces, treated like feces
to oncoming threats, not even done yet
what will take for you to believe
it is only yourself, you continue, deceive
is there any doubt now, where this going?
dont’cha know which way the wind is blowing?
The elite will have their war
no matter what for,
you must support it, or be ground under too,
this then is simply, what fascism do.
September 3rd, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Yay! Deanna’s on One Utah!!
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I kind of feel like Steve Martin in “The Jerk” when he finds his name in the phone book and realizes he’s “somebody”.
:-)
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:35 pm
We’re only protected when we’re in the womb. If you then chose to be born, you’re subject to all this crap.
September 3rd, 2006 at 6:34 pm
We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.
Recruiting is not just to fill the ranks of the armed forces but it is a constitutional obligation for the government to provide a means of defense. In fact it is the only thing the federal government is specially required to provide. Everything else is optional.
When schools accept federal funds they are obligated by law to allow military recruiters on campus to give students the opportunity to choose a career path. Many are proud to serve for the armed forces. To deny someone access to recruiters is a violation of their civil rights. This law was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court including liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Steven Brier.
You may not like recruiters on campus but you are the one at odds with the Constitution.
September 3rd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Does the Constitution state that laws shall be passsed to allow recruiters into our schools and demand our children’s records or lose their funding? I don’t think so.
Sorry, Ken I disagree that recruiters should be permitted **by law** on campus. This was never an issue until the NCLB was put into effect. Additionally, schools were never threatened with losing their funding if they didn’t allow recruiters into schools. And further, one of my points is that recruiteres are being bullies to schools and falsely telling schools they can appear any time they wish. That is just a plain lie. I have heard stories of recruiters showing up on campuses every single day. Schools do not have to allow this, under the law. They are required to only permit recruiters on campus the same amount as other institutions (colleges, etc.). For most schools, that is a few times a year at career fairs. For recruiters to claim they can come into schools anytime is blatantly false.
I never stated that students should be denied access to recruiters. You are putting words where they shouldn’t be. I stated that parents and schools need to demand that a military recruiting clause be taken out of an educational mandate. It has no place there. I also stated that people should start counter-recruitment programs in their schools. When recruiters show up to schools, veterans need to be on hand to make sure that accurate information is being presented to students - something that is often not done.
I am an advocate for removing that clause from an act that is supposedly designed to better the education of our children. Please explain to me why this mandate is in this act for the education of our children? How does allowing recruiters into our schools better the education of our children according to NCLB? It has absolutely nothing to do with instruction, the classroom or the teaching of curriculum to our children. Bottom Line: Such a clause has no place in a mandate regarding the education of our children.
Did you know that there are ROTC programs in schools as low as in middle school? Did you know that the teachers of those classes are not “highly qualified” teachers, as is the mandate under NCLB (that ALL teachers must be highly qualified or losed their jobs)? This appears to me to be a double standard, to mandate that teachers become “highly qualified” according to the criteria set forth in NCLB, but not require that ROTC instructors not meet the same criteria.
I have more stories about the tactics that recruiters use to lure children to enlist later. I have suggestions for what schools and parents can do to ensure that students get the **correct** information when recruiters show up at schools. I also have suggestions to parents whose children are so enticed by recruiters that they want to sign on the dotted line. I’ll save that for another time also.
I for one am opposed to such a mandate being placed in such an education act.
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:05 pm
You can tell I am passionate about this issue. I forgot to mention that parents are not being told in plain and simple and forthright terms that they can opt out of having their children’s records handed over. To not inform parents and students of their rights in this regard IS against their civil rights and is a disservice to the community.
The school in which I teach includes a totally separate form outlining their options specifically regarding this sec. 9528 military recruiting clause. That way it is not hidden and is included as a totally separate item in the registration materials.
If we are to be totally fair in educating our community about this, ALL facts and options must be presented.
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Deanna
Actually it was an issue prior to NCLB. There was a law known as the Solomon Amendment past in 1994, yes during the Clinton administration that requires all schools accepting federal funds to give at least as much access to military recruiters as they give other types of recruiters. It was challenged by the ACLU and other groups and just last March it was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court.
Read Report at Law.com
As for the NCLB rule requiring schools to provide information on students to recruiters was a law enacted by Congress. The military and their recruiters are simply following the law. If you don’t like the law then call your Congressmen, or as you did you can exercise your right to opt out. At least the law allows you to opt out which is very rare for a law. If only the IRS had one. (c;
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Thanks for the info, Ken, but what I’ve read about the Solomon Law, unless I’m missing something (and please point it out if I am!) refers to Universities.
From law.com:
Rejecting the views of some of the nation’s top law schools and professors, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the so-called Solomon Amendment, which requires universities receiving federal funds to give equal access to military recruiters on campus.
Here is the text of the Solomon Amendment:
http://www.yalerotc.org/Solomon.html
The 1996 Solomon Amendment provides for the Secretary of Defense to deny federal funding to institutions of higher learning if they prohibit or prevent ROTC or military recruitment on campus.
TITLE 10–ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A–General Military Law
PART II–PERSONNEL
CHAPTER 49–MISCELLANEOUS PROHIBITIONS AND PENALTIES
Sec. 983. Institutions of higher education that prevent ROTC
access or military recruiting on campus: denial of grants and
contracts from Department of Defense, Department of Education,
and certain other departments and agencies
From Boston.com News:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articl…)
The court upheld a 1994 law that would strip a university of all federal funds if any of its schools discriminates against military recruiters. The justices decisively rejected a challenge to the law by a coalition of law schools organized by a Boston-area law professor and his students.
October 6th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
[...] NOt too long ago I posted a piece on the Military Recruiting Clause in the No Child Left Behind Act. [...]