Parents be aware-NCLB funding tied to military recruiting of teens.

[For PaisAn]

Anyone who has a child in High School, please read the entire article excerpted below with a link. It would be easy for you to miss receiving this school notice in the mail. Or maybe it might get lost in the mail. Please be proactive and contact the school if you do not wish military recruiters to contact your child. Why is NCLB funding tied to military recruiting? It's disgusting.

On a seperate but related note, I just saw a commercial on MTV. Isn't the primary MTV audience teenagers? The commercial is made to look like an Ad for some exciting new Play Station war game. But no, it's an Army recruitment Ad. "Special Forces Soldier - Think you're up to it?" It's disgusting. Here's a link that's shown at the end of the commercial. The link brings you to a questionnaire and gives info on ordering a recruitment video: https://www.goarmy.com/sfsoldier/infoform.htm


Now here's the NCLB article:

Watch out for this school note
Paul Vitello

March 30, 2004

The various notices from the school pour into our house daily like some slot machine jackpot of pre-sorted mail. Some days, it's one or two pieces. Some weeks, it seems like hundreds - announcing board meetings, PTA meetings, book sales, sports schedules, bus schedules, interim grades, yearbook pictures, invitations, permission slips, health notices...

It is a wide and deep river of paper, and in the currents it would be easy to miss the school notification required under Sec. 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

...snip...

It is the one required under the "Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students" section of the "No Child" law. It says that school officials are required to turn over to U.S. military recruiters the names, addresses and phone numbers of every child - male and female - enrolled in the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12 grades of your school system.

The school notice will inform you of this, and offer you a Do Not Call option whereby your child's name can be withheld from the list. If you do nothing, the recruiters may call day or night, and say what they will about the opportunities awaiting your child in the armed forces.

...snip...

To put the onus where it belongs, any school that does not turn over those names risks losing its federal funding under the law. For some schools, that means a lot of money.


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/ny-livit303729558mar30,0,3467841.column?coll=ny-li-columnists

[Sulldogg]

1. This isn't new

Recruiters get this kind of access to any school receiving federal funds, and ahs been the law of the land for quite some time.

[For PaisAn]

2. I was not aware of that?

After reading the below paragraph in the article it appeared that what was new was that funding could be withheld if the schools did not comply. Are you saying that there has been a financial penalty to schools for a long time?

"It is a wide and deep river of paper, and in the currents it would be easy to miss the school notification required under Sec. 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."

Either way I feel it is important for parents to be aware so that they have a choice.

I recently read an article about a young guy from here on Long Island who was recruited at his H.S. without his Mom's knowledge or permission. She would have denied permission if she had known they were doing this. As for him, he died in Iraq.

So old news, new news, it's still an important issue to remind and/or advise parents of. Don't ya think?

Also, do you think the Army should be putting those Ads on MTV?

[Sulldogg]

3. When I was in HS

I was contacted by recruiters from the Air Force and the Army, without my father's knowledge. They called me at home, talked to me, sent me recruitment letters and such. I was never pressured or anything like that, once I told them I was going to college, they backed off.

Army and Navy guys came to school and recuited, and I had friends join from those recuitment visits. Nothing was sent home, no notice given.

If there was a 'do not call' list, I think that should be out there, but I don't necessarily think they need to be advised of recruiting trips.

As for advertising on MTV, why not, it is a valid career path, people can sign up as Conscientous Objectors and avoid front line warfare. My father was a 20 year Air Force enlisted man, joined up right at the tail end of Vietnam after he decided college wasn't for him. He did that despite both his parents (my grandmother lived on base in Vietnam) going to Vietnam for extended periods of time near the end of his career.

My father benefitted tremendously from the leadership and technical training he gained in uniform. I may be the most pro-military person on here, but I still think they present a valid career choice for many people not quite ready to join the jungles of the American workforce.

[For PaisAn]

4. You miss my point

I am not anti-military. I will never forget the Jack Nicholson line in "A Few Good Men", "You need me on that wall. You want me on that wall."

These are my complaints:
1) The military should not be able to recruit to kids in H.S., either by calling them at home or visiting them at the school, without parents permission first. And they can't I'm just letting parents know who aren't aware of this.

2) NCLB funding should not be tied to the school having to allow military recruiting. That's BS. What is the justification for it?
Funding for schools has nothing to do with military recruiting, nor should it. It's blackmail. And since you said "This is old news", did they penalize schools financially, prior to NCLB, if they didn't comply?

3) It concerns me that they are targeting kids on MTV knowing that their parents are not going to know about it? The commercial was designed to seduce these kids. You'd have to see it to understand.

Anyway, again, since apparently the parents CAN refuse the recruiting (at school and at home) I think the parents need to know this. It would be all too easy for them to miss the notification. Respectfully, it doesn't matter if you think it's OK or if I don't. It should be THEIR choice. If they don't want their child to be subject to these recruitment efforts they need to be proactive and call the school themselves. If it's OK with them then they can disregard this post and information.

Right now military enlistment is not a career choice, it's suicide. You know, Bush's endless wars.
:(

[Sulldogg]

5. Your complaints are valid

But I disagree on some of them:

1) Why should the Army be resticted to different recruitment standards than other employers? The rule as I know it is that the Armed Services must be given the same recuiting access as any other employer, which means access to carerr fairs, pamphletting and such. I am not naive in acting like the Armed Services are just like any other job, but to single them out seems be in poor taste. If parent's talk to their children, as mine did, the roel of a military lifestyle would be discussed and debated, as would college as would other employment.

2) Yes, federal funding to all schools is tied the above standard, as you cann see from this Yale Law article: http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=19904

The college law is known as the SOlomon Ammendment. I can't find a reference for a secondary school law, but I knwo it was brought up while I was there.

3) If the kid is gonna join the Army because of an ad on TV and not tell his parents, there are far larger issues in play, and it shoudl not fall on the Army to not advertise, since it may persuade some of those people. The Armed Forces don't want people who will cause problems or be a liability, they want 20+ year guys, or they are just wasting their time and money. Recruiters can sort a lot of the problem folks out, they ahve turned away people I know.

I agree that parents shoudl know, but it is hard to ask a school to do more than send home a flier and post a webpage (as a lot do). It is the parent's responsibliity to read and be informed.