COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
Leaving No Soldier Behind: The Militarization of Education
A.J. Di Lorenzo, op-ed-news
January 8, 2007
Since the September 11th attacks, the agenda of the Bush administration has
become increasingly focused on foreign policy and domestic security, at the
expense of pressing domestic issues. While large portions of the federal
budget are allocated for funding the war in Iraq and a host of mismanaged
homeland security operations, large tax cuts for the wealthy further strip
the government's ability to fund domestic programs. President Bush isolated
education as his top domestic issue, but has failed to fund his ill
conceived No Child Left Behind legislation. In fact, the act is more
intricately linked with the larger Bush foreign policy agenda than it may
initially appear and offers little hope to poor students beyond a chance to
serve their country in the perpetual "war on terror."
Despite fears of an overstretched military by most experts, Bush seems
supremely confident that he can increase military recruitment enough to
offset his proposed "troop surge" in Iraq. Where will these troops come
from? -- Our high schools most likely.
Hidden within the funding benefits of the No Child Left Behind Act is
Section 9528, which allows military recruiters access to directories with
students names, telephone numbers and other personal information. Under the
act, military recruiters are given the same access to student information
as college recruiters, posing a substantial threat to student privacy. One
prominent organization, Leave My Child Alone, notes that "the Pentagon has
created an illegal database of 30 million 16-25 year-olds, including names,
addresses, email addresses, cell phone numbers, ethnicities, social
security numbers, extracurricular activities, and areas of study." Many
parents and students are unaware that that this database exists, but likely
wonder why they are receiving so many recruiting calls, letters, and visits.
Evidently, President Bush does not want to leave students behind in bad
schools, but would rather they join up for military service. Instead of
improving the schools themselves and offering better educational
opportunities to the students, under-performing schools are targeted as
fertile ground for military recruitment of our most vulnerable children.
Many parents have called for schools to resist releasing personal student
information to military recruiters on grounds that it constitutes a
violation of privacy, but schools have a strong incentive to provide the
information. If a school withholds such information it can risk losing the
bulk of its federal assistance. This is money that many schools can
ill-afford to sacrifice. While there are ways for parents to opt out of the
information sharing process, they are often unknown to parents and students
and are under-publicized by schools.
However, the problem is gaining attention and schools are feeling the
pressure to increase awareness about the process. Chicago Public Schools
CEO Arne Duncan stated at a Board of Education meeting that, "We need to do
a better job of getting the word out ... to help the parents, let them make
an informed decision." Statements such as these are a positive sign but
much more must be done. If schools, the media, organizations and
individuals are able to publicize that parents do have the option to block
access to their children's information, the threat to privacy will be
greatly minimized.
Fortunately, several groups, including the War Resisters League
(warresisters. org) and the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools
(militaryfreeschool s.org) have made "opt-out" forms available on their web
sites, which can be sent to the respective district offices. While it is
mandatory for the school district to make parents aware of the "opt out
clause" in No Child Left Behind, the standard is arbitrary and it is
imperative that agents outside of the school system take action.
There is also hope in Washington, as The Student Privacy and Protection Act
(H.R.551) has been proposed as an amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act
that, if passed, will give parents the option to opt-in to military
recruitment rather than being forced to opt-out. Advocates of the amendment
can express their support through a petition hosted on the web site of the
organization Leave My Child Alone (leavemychildalone. org). Hopefully, the
new Democratic majority in the Congress will bring new pressure on this issue.
The crux of this argument against providing private student information to
the military is that it does not further the education of the students and
redefines the role of school, from a place of learning to a venue for
targeting future soldiers. It is also important to note that the schools
receiving the most attention from recruiters are those in inner-city
districts, where students have fewer options and are more likely to opt for
military service at the expense of furthering their education after high
school. While this may make perfect sense from the perspective of those
recruiting soldiers for the front-lines in Iraq, it makes little sense for
those who strive to create a more equitable education system. Responsible
citizens should oppose legislation making it easier to prey on students and
families that are in an economically disadvantaged position.
The fundamental question is whether, as a society, we should tolerate
fusing education with militarism in our poorest schools. How can we expect
students at these schools to feel that they are respected as learners,
critical thinkers and invaluable members of their communities when they are
conditioned to be soldiers? How can we expect students to achieve
academically when they are sold out by an administration that professes to
value them as potential high achieving students, but in practice treats
them as potential cannon fodder? President Bush argues that we must change
the culture of failure in our under-performing schools, "the soft bigotry
of low expectations" as he calls it. These low expectations become
increasingly evident when a culture of militarism invades our schools.
The culture of failure in our schools can only be challenged when students
and parents demand that they receive a quality education and recognize the
threat that militarism poses to their futures. It is nothing new for the
United States to short change education in favor of defense spending, but
providing the military unprecedented access to our children for recruitment
has made the nation's priorities all the more clear.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of