Stop The Military From Getting Your Children's Names... Opt Out

[RestoreGore]

Do it before they ever enter high school. Military recruiters are relentless at high schools, and were just present at a college night at my local high school. The primary concern of parents is to safeguard the lives and safety of their children, and this is now part of it. No child should have to experience harrassment and lofty promises just to be sent to an illegal war to be blown to pieces. It is time for parents to stand up at their high schools and opt their children out.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/30/4214/

Fight Back Against Giving Kids’ Names to Military
by David Giffey

The No Child Left Behind Act is up for reauthorization this month. There has been much necessary criticism and commentary about its unfunded mandates, forced standardized testing, and takeover threats to struggling public school systems.

But another critical piece of the law is often overlooked.

Section 9528, in about 200 words, requires public high schools to give student information to military recruiters upon request unless the families or students opt out.

The Capital Times story last Friday about opting out at East High School exemplified the type of parental and community action required to level the playing field between military recruitment and options to the military. But much remains to be done, especially in rural communities.

Section 9528 has consistently escaped attention while the other very real and controversial contents of the law preoccupy educators and legislators, distracting them from what is happening daily as uniformed military recruiters patrol the hallways of the 22,000 public high schools in the U.S.

The presence of military recruiters in schools is a tradition that demands more scrutiny of the increased pressure the war in Iraq places on recruiters to meet their quotas, for which they are paid.

Since the law threw open our school doors to new military recruitment opportunities, the responses among the 425 public school districts in Wisconsin have been utterly inconsistent. It is likely that some administrators, guidance counselors, and certainly many teachers in Wisconsin secondary schools never even heard of Section 9528. As a result, the responses have been disorganized, inconsistent, and in some cases totally absent.

snip

There are many reasons to question reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, not least being the imbalance between federal funding of the military in 2008 at $1,228 billion compared to federal education funding at $59 billion. Legitimate concerns are raised over the future of public education in the face of the law’s impulse to take over school districts deemed to be unsuccessful.

Section 9528, on its own, is intimidating to school districts.

The extreme punishment that could befall a school district for noncompliance with military recruitment mandates is described by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in Bulletin No. 02.12 dated Dec. 10, 2002, which outlines “enforcement” of Section 9528.

“In addition to the potential loss of funds for failure to comply with (Section) 9528 (a school) that denies a military recruiter access to the requested information on students will be subject to specific interventions.” First the noncompliant school would be paid a visit by a senior military officer. Then “the Department of Defense must notify the state governor within 60 days.” Unresolved problems would then be reported to Congress.

What next? Waterboarding the high school principal?

snip

It would be even better if our elected officials removed Section 9528 from the law. Until then, all we citizens can do is work to learn about and reveal the truth about military recruitment taking place today in our public high schools.

David Giffey of Arena is a Vietnam War veteran and a board member of Veterans for Peace in Central Wisconsin.

[USA_1]

1. !

'' ... waging war, learning how to kill, or to accept being killed. It’s not a “career choice” the recruiters are selling. It’s a lifestyle. ''


I bet this makes more people on DU glad that there is no draft!

[NYVet]

26. Never mind the jobs like Physical rehabilitation, X-Ray Tech, Avionics repair, etc....

That you can learn in the military without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn in a civilian college.



But I guess myself and the rest of the people who have served our country in the military are just a bunch of knuckledraggers, right?

[USA_1]

34. In My Youth I Also Enlisted ...

... but was disqualified from service because of a cardiac condition.

I'm all for young people making voluntary choices so long as they are informed choices.

Thanks for your service to the USA - sorry that we couldn't have served together.

[Uben]

2. How do you opt out?

Where do you go and what do you have to do?

[RestoreGore]

4. Your school should have the form

And when you fill it out, make sure you keep a copy of it for yourself.

[RestoreGore]

6. Here's a link that might help

http://themmob.org/lmca/

[LWolf]

3. How many of you have written to your reps to tell them

not to reauthorize if high-stakes testing, federal control of curriculum and instruction, or invasion of student privacy is included?

No "fixing." No "changing to address flaws," in the case of these flaws. Get rid of these pieces entirely, or don't reauthorize.

Does anyone care enough to contact their reps? How about contacting those on the committee?

There's some contact info at the end of this piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSTzLILQx3c

[RestoreGore]

5. I did

I told them I wanted the entire section regarding student information to the military removed. Don't know how much good it will do, but I tried. Hope others will do so as well.

[LWolf]

7. Thank you!

:loveya:

[lonestarnot]

8. Isn't it just crap that we have to do this? You would think it would

be a given.

[RestoreGore]

21. In a truly free Democratic society, yes n/t

.

[LWolf]

32. You'd think.

We actually have to petition our reps in our government to ask them not to vote for abusive legislation.

[SarahB]

9. Thank you for posting this.

K&R :thumbsup:

[RestoreGore]

20. You're welcome

Our children are prey out there.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. Just please understand that all bets are off when they turn 18

At that point, they are adults and all the opting out that you did in the world will not stop recruiters from being able to talk to them.

[halobeam]

11. If they are still in school at 18 they are allowed to sign their own optout form

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. Make sure they do it, if that's what they want

I've just run into too many parents lately who freaked out when they found out their (over 18) kid in college was talking to a recruiter and believed they (the parent) could stop it with some irate phone calls.

[RestoreGore]

16. Oh, don't worry, I got that covered too ;-)

[LiberalFighter]

12. At the least they should NOT be given the phone number of the parents

Especially, if they signed up for the "Do-Not-Call" list.

Personally, they should not be given names, addresses or phone numbers of any student.

If they want to provide material in the school counselors office and have maybe 2 days but not more than 4 days in the school that would be fine by me. BUT they could not try mingling with students in the hallway during their between class breaks or try to make first contact with students. They could only respond to inquiries directed at them.

If the student is under 18 they could not request or receive the phone number of the student with a cell phone. If a student is under 18 and is interested in being contacted by the military the recruiter must receive signed permission from the parent and verify the parent signed the permission.

[RestoreGore]

19. The school actually asked for the social security number

I flatly refused.

[The2ndWheel]

13. You can't opt-out

Once that is your last choice, you have no choice left. Whoever needs whatever info they need, they can get it, especially the military.

Fair enough, they can't get equipment. But, if the people not fighting wanted to get them equipment, they could.

[RestoreGore]

17. Oh I can believe that,,,

But I'm not handing them anything.

[halobeam]

15. DON'T FORGET THESE TWO THINGS:

There is a database called JAMR for everyone b/w the ages of 16 -26... Rumsfeld did this illegally, here's the link to remove your child from this database with it's own "opt-out" of database form:

http://www.mothersagainstthedraft.org/files/forms/JAMR%20Opt-Out%20Form.pdf

The other thing is to be aware of the ASVAB testing that is available in many schools. Sometimes they don't call it that, they say it's a "career placement" testing. It's results go directly to the military (they grade it). Some schools will NOT give this test and refer anyone who actually wants it, to go to nearest recruiting office, and then some schools have actually given this test without either the student or parent knowing exactly what this is. There's been some stories about how they intimidated students to take it. FIND OUT about it... google it, and then once you have your info, contact your school guidance counselor and find out the school policy. Let your child know they NEVER have to take this test, no matter who says they do.

I'm sure the above link has info on this, too.

edit to add: My understanding is if they are on this database, or take the test, it overrides the opt-out.

[RestoreGore]

18. Thank you for this

I will definitely check this out.

[lonestarnot]

28. Sheet! Something I didn't know! Thanks. Checking now!

[liberalhistorian]

22. My teenage son has Asperger's Syndrome. Normally,

that would prevent him from being considered by recruiters, but these are not "normal" times and there have been several reported instances of students with conditions that fall under the autism spectrum being signed up even when recruiters knew of their condition.

We live on an Indian reservation, and the recruiters at the high schools are relentless. A higher percentage of native americans nationwide join the military following high school, especially here in SD. They really don't see much hope of doing anything else, given the extreme poverty, sadly enough. SD has now lost TWENTY TWO soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty two!!!!!!!

[RestoreGore]

24. How sad

It is insidious to me how they play on poverty and promise them the moon when all they get is horror and heartache. And to sign up students with autism... is that not illegal? What heartless bastards. Have you opted your son out anyway then?

[liberalhistorian]

25. Oh, yes, indeed, I've opted

him out. That won't stop him from talking to them when he's 18 and in college, of course, but it will for the next two years.

I wonder how many recruiters you see in upper-class and upper-middle-class high schools and neighborhoods? Probably almost none.

[RestoreGore]

27. I've never noticed any at the private schools here

Just the public high school.

[RestoreGore]

23. Never Coming Home

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1942194&mesg_id=1942194

This never should have happened. We must protect our children. There are times when fighting to protect your shores in warranted. This isn't one of them.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

29. It doesn't work. I opted out both my sons & their names were given to the military by colleges they

applied to.

[Orsino]

30. ...and educate your kids so they won't fall for the recruiters' line of BS.

Military service should be entered with eyes open.

[L0oniX]

31. Children? LOL ..I am 55 and I just got a marine recruiting mag in the mail.

it's just so stupid. Start a fucking draft and then see what will happen.

[Xithras]

33. Revoking section 9528 will not fix the problem.

The 1974 FERPA act permits schools to release enrollment information to ANY third party as long as they can show a legitimate need for the information. It has been used for decades by colleges, credit card companies, and loan companies to market their products to senior high school students, and has been used by recruiters for just as long. Why? Because most high schools consider recruiting to be a legitimate need.

9528 was passed because a small number of schools (maybe a few dozen of the many thousands nationwide) started denying the requests as a way to resist the Iraq war. The vast majority of schools did not refuse. 9528 simply prevented schools from refusing these requests unless the PARENTS opted the kids out.

If 9528 were struck tomorrow, we'd simply revert to the older FERPA regulations, and the majority of American schools would continue handing the information over when requested. If you really want to stop this information from being turned over, we need to lobby for a FERPA amendment.