COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
NCLB and the Military
Gregory Sotir, Zmag.org
June 03, 2007
The British navy used to use trapdoors in barrooms to capture
recruits to maintain its colonial empire. The U.S. military doesn't
need these tricks. It has No Child Left Behind.
Section 9528, the 300 or so words buried within the act's 670 pages,
cement militarism in public schools. This section's provisions funnel
private student data such as telephone numbers and home addresses
into the Pentagon for military recruitment purposes and also mandate
access for military recruiters to students in public secondary schools.
As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, recruiters have
become increasingly aggressive on campus. Data from student
information provided via Section 9528 are used for recruiter home
visits and repetitive phone calls to students. Military recruiters
also use high-pressure sales techniques, flashy videos, and eye-candy
trinkets, and bring he-man danger mobiles such as Hummers and
helicopters onto school grounds to attract students, especially young males.
At the beginning of this school year, the Los Angeles-based Coalition
Against Militarism In Our Schools (CAMS), a group that I work with,
decided to get the word out about Section 9528.
As NCLB reauthorization neared, we began spreading the word about
Section 9528 to the blogosphere, via e-mails, websites, and letter
writing campaigns to congressional representatives. In contacts with
legislators, we encouraged activists to express the need to carefully
review the excesses of NCLB, and to eliminate Section 9528 from any
NCLB reauthorization.
CAMS activists thought that citizen contacts with legislators would
be only marginally effective. So we committed ourselves to working at
the grassroots, with parents, students, and educators, to build
concern about Section 9528 and military recruitment abuse. We
initiated counter-recruitment conferences where Section 9528 was
explained. We produced documents written in ways that youth could
understand, and distributed them through our Adopt-A-School
volunteers at over 35 high school campuses in Los Angeles just before
the students enter school.
CAMS has organized at the district level to place limits on
recruiters, with some success, and has spread the word to students,
with better success. A February 19 Los Angeles Times article reported
that JROTC enrollment in LAUSD had declined 24 percent in the last
four years compared to an 8 percent growth nationwide, due in part to
CAMS organizing teachers and students. CAMS also counters military
recruiters by setting up tables at school events such as Career Day
Fairs and Community Fairs.
We concentrated our teacher union work within the Human Rights
Committee of United Teachers Los Angeles, a joint National Education
Association and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) local. As a
member of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), the AFT
statewide teacher union affiliate, I drafted a resolution to put the
union on record for the removal of NCLB's Section 9528. UTLA
introduced the resolution at the CFT convention and delegates
approved it overwhelmingly on March 18, one day before the 4th
anniversary of the Iraqi invasion. (See box for the text of the resolution.)
So where do we go from here? CAMS suggests a variety of activities,
locally and nationally:
· Inform yourself about NCLB, particularly Section 9528.
· Hold an NCLB discussion meeting with fellow educators.
· Reach out beyond the people who are already opposed to the
war. Conservatives do not like federal mandates regarding the release
of citizens' private information and Big Brother style governance.
· Write and pass anti-9528 resolutions in your unions.
· Call, write, or better yet, visit your congressional
representative and voice your concerns. Support H.R. 1346, which
removes Section 9528 from NCLB. Let Senators and Congresspeople know
that you oppose NCLB's provision that orders schools to support
military recruitment in our public schools.
Gregory Sotir teaches 8th grade English at Virgil Middle School in
Los Angeles. He works with the Coalition Against Militarism in Our
Schools. http://www.military freeschools. org/
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