<p>Under a little known provision of No Child Left Behind, public high schools must hand over personal information about students – including minors – to local military recruiters, or risk losing federal education funding. I think it’s a real invasion of family privacy and local school control.</p>
<p>On June 1, concerned citizens across the country will be getting together at house parties and progressive meetups to help get kids off these lists and to lobby school districts and school boards to notify parents of their rights when it comes to military recruiting in schools.</p>
<p>There’s also great information and a useful online tool that makes it easy to “opt out” our children from these lists. Just go to <a href=“Leave My Child Alone”>Leave My Child Alone; to learn more.</p>
<p>I hope you find this information useful. And tell other people you know about LeaveMyChildAlone.org</p>
<p>The military is doing nothing they haven’t been doing for the past 100 years. All the kid has to do is say no if they do not want to join the military. It is really beginning to disgust me of the hatred for the military and our troops on this board. The military is just providing options for kids to serve their country proudly. Take your Anti-American crap to another board please.</p>
<p>my daughters school PTSA has been in the news lately because they took a vote to inform recruiters that they were not welcome in the schools, even though because of NCLB they do not actually have the option to ban them.
Although I did not vote to ban recruiters, I had been trying to explain to enraged veterans why the board took that position IMO.
They have gotten very nasty
I don’t know why they can’t wait till the kids come to them.
They don’t hit up the private schools like Lakeside, they go to the schools with more lower income students.
<a href=“http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0518/p02s01-ussc.html[/url]”>http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0518/p02s01-ussc.html</a></p>
<p>“The military is just providing options for kids to serve their country proudly. Take your Anti-American crap to another board please.”</p>
<p>criticism of the military is not anti american. critical thought and an aversion to tyranny was the basis of america’s birth. As obi wan kenobi said “only the sith deal in absolutes”.</p>
<p>The military is particularly slimy in its techniques. Recruiters telling people that they would be arrested if they didnt sign the enlistment papers. Recruiters telling students where to get fake high school degrees in order to enroll, etc etc. The military is a slightly necessary evil in my point of view.
Take a look at europe. They spend far less on the military as a percentage of gdp, yet they are at peace! American conservatives prefer to solve problems with guns. That is why much of the rest of the world hates us. Yet no one sees the same anti-european sentiment around.</p>
<p>While I did not vote to ban the military presence in the schools I agree that the recruiters need to be scheduled as the colleges are, and they need to wait for students to approach them, not follow them around while they go from class to class.
I realize that recruiting for the Army is down almost 50% from target last month- but after reading about families whose bills aren’t paid when the parents are deployed because of paycheck screw ups, troops who don’t have adaquate armor, and soldiers who have fullfiled their course of duty but aren’t allowed to be discharged because of emergency stop loss, I don’t thinka few high schools stating that they want their students to be left alone is the reason why the military is not seen as an attractive option for more young people.</p>
<p>That happened 30 years ago, back during the Vietnam War, when the draft was still in effect. I think it’s a bit different now with the volunteer army.</p>
<p>
I would contest the statement that they are at peace; Britain is fighting in Iraq, and Spain is fighting terrorists. Much of eastern Europe is simmering with revolutionary sentiments. And would you prefer Ukrainian “peace”, using underhanded tactics like dioxin poison, to American war?</p>
<p>Recruiters should be allowed in schools for the people who do want to join the military. Instead of telling our children that the military is bad, we need to allow them to gather the information for themselves and make their own decisions.</p>
<p>I fall into the camp that the military should absolutely be offered as an option for students, similar to how visits by campus admissions reps are handled. They should be allowed to attend career fairs and other similar events, and the GC office should be stocked with military career information. But the recruiters need to handle themselves professionally and ethically. Threatening arrest for missing an appointment? Promising cushy assignments? Not fully disclosing the effect of the current stop-loss policy on the new “18-month” hitches they’ve been promoting? All of these activities are very embarassing and do not reflect well on the organization – which, believe it or not, is still overwhelmingly stocked with outstanding young men and women.</p>
<p>I think the point of the OP’s post is that under NCLB, the military recruiters have access to your child’s personal contact info whether or not your child is interested in the military. </p>
<p>Let the military recruit on a level playing field with everyone else: set up their tables, let students who are interested ask for information, and have the recruiters tell the truth about enlistment promises and perqs. </p>
<p>If your child picks a college or a job and it turns out not to be all that was promised, s/he can transfer or quit. </p>
<p>That doesn’t work with the military, even if it turns out the recruiter fabricated much of the pitch.</p>
<p>The school sent home a personal information form at the start of the year. I noticed a place on the form where it said the parent could mark if they did not want the student’s name and phone number given to the military. I marked the box. The military still called. Apparently the little box is just for appearances…</p>
<p>Ah, Joev…there’s a big difference between hatred of the military and not wanting to see anyone’s son or daughter swallowed up in a cause that many have good reason to believe a product of cynical manipulation and is flat-out wrongheaded. I see very very little of the former and a lot of the latter.</p>
<p>There are a number of semantic fallacies floating out there, including “anti-Iraq policy” = “anti-military” and “anti-Bush” = “un-American” or “un-patriotic.”</p>
<p>Joev, just so you know, I have an American flag on my car…along with a couple of progressive bumper stickers. Although I have been against the war in Iraq since the beginning, I support the military’s recruitment efforts when they are open and voluntary. I do not think our schools should be involved in routinely giving lists of students’ names to any group – not even the Democratic party! I guess you believe in big government more than I do. </p>
<p>Btw, I do think the government should be treating our military personnel with far more respect than it currently is. Isn’t it strange how our labels – “liberal,” “progressive,” “conservative,” “blue state,” “red state,” etc. – are so inadequate to describe thoughtful opinions?</p>
<p>I received a call at home for my s. from an army recruiter (he identified himself as such). I told the recruiter my s. was not home; recruiter asked if he could leave his contact info. and I said “no”. He politely asked why, and I told him that no parent wants their child to serve in Iraq. He told me that not everyone goes to Iraq (I didn’t want to get into how one goes about getting into THAT army); I cut him off and said I would relay the message to my s. when the Bush twins enlist, because then I would feel that it was fair, that everyone was being asked to make a sacrifice. He stifled a laugh and we haven’t received any more calls.</p>
<p>LHoD, I had a similar call for my D. Told the recruiter to give it up, that my D was a bad match. He asked why. I said she wasn’t into regimentation, wasn’t athletic in the tradtional sense, and she couldn’t stand stand Bush or his Iraq policy.</p>
<p>Him: typical Californian?
Me: I guess so.</p>
<p>And that was it.</p>
<p>Driver, there’s a big difference between weightings of poll samples (which are usually corrected) and deliberate, cynical attempts to mislead. Take Cheney, Chalabi, and Curveball. Please.</p>
Actually no…the “mainstream media” polls are merely a part of the deliberate, cynical attempt to mislead nice folks who think they know all about Cheney, Chalabi, and Curveball, because, well, they read about them in the deliberately cynical and untrustworthy MSM echo chamber.</p>
<p>Have you ever ordered something over the phone from a phone call, like a subscription to the newspaper, and then the supervisor comes on the phone and asks to verify that you truly did order the newspaper, and you know what the deal really is?</p>
<p>Well, I think we need the same thing for the military today. The recruiters are under a huge amount of pressure to recruit their quotas, and the stories of abuses are just too numerous to be ignored. </p>
<p>I was eavesdropping on a high school senior recently and heard her tell a friend she had just enlisted in the army. Her friend was horrified, and said “how could you do that? - They’ll send you to Iraq”. So the first student responded - as my blood ran cold - something like, “don’t worry - the recruiter said that if I don’t like it I can leave after the first month.” This is unbelievable.</p>
<p>I think we ought to have some supervisor step in, and verify what the kid thinks he/she is signing up for, so that an army official who is not paid/judged based on number of recruits verifies what the prospective soldiers think they are agreeing to, BEFORE they sign. This is a matter of life and death. </p>
<p>At least we have a duty to make sure that the men and women who join the army, know what enlistment means.</p>
<p>Even before No Child Left Behind, the military had access to these lists. No Child Left Behind, in fact, made it harder for recruiters to access these lists, as before there had been no functioning opt-out.</p>
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<p>Europe also has fewer threats, as Europe is no longer the superpower of the world. Although it attempts to return to the global scene as one unified superpower force, it still fails to do so with the European Union.</p>
<p>The unethical recruiting tactics that were seen in Colorado were isolated occasions. Never, in my experience, have I seen a recruiter use these unethical tactics to gain a recruit. Sure, I’ve seen convincing that’s something that any decent salesperson would do. The military, like everyone else, must fight for its pool of applicants.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is being choked to the point where it is being no longer allowed to breathe. How long will we continue choking our nation’s armed forces? Until the point where a strike against our national security convinces us once again to increase efforts within the military?</p>
<p>No one wants that. An excessive military is an unwanted one, a stable military is a necessary one, and a lacking military is as good as none.</p>
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<p>Recruiting for the military is being reduced thanks to scare tactics from uber-liberal organizations that desire for the military not to have a presence anywhere, at all. The images given by anti-military organizations (often untrue) showing the hardships of military life… yes, they do occur, BUT… not for everyone. </p>
<p>One thing: military recruiters are not allowed to make political statements. That means, if they are challenged by an anti-military organization, they are unable to defend themselves except by the facts. They are not allowed to express their own political opinion, and thus, often are left speechless when dragged into a debate with anti-military organizations.</p>
<p>What prevents the military from having access and presenting itself in the job market as opposed to other organizations? Is it because of the fact that it’s not a job for everyone? Of course. It’s not a job for everyone. But it is attractive to some people, and by cutting the military’s ability to present itself off, you make the business of recruitment unfair. Now, recruiters are being cut off from their source of applicants, and pretty soon, the way applicant rates are going, we’d be a lame duck if any threat against our national security were to strike. Why? Once recruitment < retirement/discharge, that means the Army becomes smaller. If the Army does not maintain its current numbers (at current rates, it seems as if this will happen within the next few years), there will be a subtle deterioration of our armed forces.</p>
<p>Technology can only do so much as far as combat goes. There has been an emphasis in bringing in technology to reduce the amount of manpower needed to fight; however, once again, it has its limits.</p>
<p>Several tactics of the military recruitment drives have been, of course, deemed unethical and indeed ARE unethical. Most of these recruiters, however, are people too – they have a job to accomplish and on top of that, with the members of the community berating them because of the political views represented by the Oval Office, who in turn has really nothing to do with military recruiters. Military recruiters are not representative of the White House, nor of President Bush. They do not express a political opinion, but rather a need of common sense: the necessity of American survival. Not all practices of the military can be watched and surveillanced as we desire it to be, however, nothing is perfect. </p>
<p>It takes a certain degree of vigilance in order to ensure that the military recruitment drive is being conducted under ethical grounds. However, there is a difference between vigilance and extreme vigilance – almost to an unnecessary point. Instead of calling for careful surveillance, many I know who are involved with anti-military organizations are calling for the complete dismantling of the military structure. What sort of lunacy is this?</p>
<p>I know that many of the parents here do not feel the same way as these radicalists do about the military – that you are indeed supportive of the military as long as it is open and honest. We cannot expect the military to become changed overnight; but… don’t forget that although the military may seem very Big-Brotherish, there is still civilian oversight of the Department of Defense and the Armed Forces. Crossing that line between careful surveillance of procedure and requesting action of unnecessary measures, such as banning the military recruiters altogether, may ultimately lead to a consequence none of us desire.</p>
<p>I am an avid defender of the military recruitment policy, but even I know it is not flawless. But unlike many here, I know the rest of the story; I know exactly what the recruiters must endure in order to meet their monthly missions, and the pressure that they receive from higher headquarters. To them, it’s a matter of making ends meet.</p>
<p>I dare not call them the victims, because I know they have a hand in the unethical nature of some recruiting practices. However, in a sense, they are the victims. They are condemned by the citizenry because of the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, and on the other hand, are pressured immensely by higher headquarters to produce better numbers.</p>
<p>What’s a recruiter to do? Quit? Another soldier then is pulled from the front lines and is placed into a recruiting job. Someone, once again, thrust into a task that is relatively unknown to them, and under the pressure of higher headquarters once more.</p>
<p>It’s a vicious process. But as emeraldkity said, it’s a necessary evil. We must maintain our strength in the military in order to preserve the
strength of our nation. We all desire the perfect world, but there is no such thing. As long as humankind is allowed to wield arms and express their aggression through the death of others, we must have a defense ready to combat any danger. But who is to say, what is an adequate amount of defense and readiness?</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, it is being choked to the point where it is being no longer allowed to breathe. How long will we continue choking our nation’s armed forces? Until the point where a strike against our national security convinces us once again to increase efforts within the military”</p>
<p>maybe if we didnt end all our troubles by sending in the US army then we could reduce the size and cost of our military. But, no, the civilians in charge are chickenhawks who send other people to fight their wars.</p>
<p>The day Jenna and Barbara join the miitary is the day that I sign up for the marines. Considering the odds, looks like I’ll be a civilian for a VERY long time</p>
<p>There are abuses inherent in every system. With all of the kids that have turned 18 in my household, I’ve yet to have problems with military recruiters. Maybe the boys’ reputations preceded them. But in this neck of the woods, I’ve heard n’ary a complaint. But then other than kids going into ROTC, I don’t see a rush to the military. I do work in an inner city highschool, and I’ve not seen hide or hair of the military recruiters there, and I’ll have to say if there is a kid eligible to join, better the military get him/her than the gangs, drugs dealers, bottom feeders. I wish they had more of a presence there. </p>
<p>Clearly abusers need to be addressed. THe system should be such that kids know exactly what they are signing. The few kids that I know who have joined seem to be well informed. However, I do agree with parents who feel that the military should have a table and work in step with other competing options, though being the government, there should be some courtesies extended as well. For it to become a faceoff is really a shame, and I am sorry that it has come to that. Some dialogue needs to be established between such schools and the recruiters, but the tone that the military recruiters are the Falstaffs should not be taken either. </p>
<p>The more I think about it, the curiouser it seems, that this family has never been approached by military recruiters.</p>
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