In advance of the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year at high schools in the Grand Rapids area, Media Mouse has revised and expanded its information on how students and their parents can “opt-out” from having their information released to military recruiters. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, unless parents “opt-out,” high schools are required to turn over “student directory information”—a somewhat ambiguous class of records that range from student names and phone numbers to email addresses—to military recruiters upon request or lose federal funding. While Media Mouse previously only maintained a form to generate opt-out letters for the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS), information has now been compiled for other public high schools.
The policies at most area high schools meet the minimum standards of the No Child Let Behind Act with most schools making the school’s policy about “student directory information” and its release to military recruiters available in school handbooks. Such placement, while fulfilling the requirement that “the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request” not to have their child’s information given to military recruiters, still fails to inform many parents of the option. To that end, activists with the Institute for Global Education (IGE)’s Military Service Dialog Committee attended orientation sessions at GRPS high schools last week in order to distribute “opt-out” forms and to inform parents and students of their options. Elsewhere across the United States, activists have encouraged schools to take more proactive approaches for informing parents including sending letters containing the information directly to parents or putting the opt-out information on mandatory student emergency cards. Some school districts have also given students—even if they are under 18—the ability to opt-out themselves while others have established “opt-in” policies where information is by default kept from recruiters unless students or parents indicate that they want the information released.
While “opt-out” policies have received considerable attention as part of the national “counter-recruitment” movement to challenge military recruiters, there are a variety of other ways in which the military gains access to high school students personal information. Aside from the omnipresence of recruiters within many high schools, the military also receives detailed information about students from the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, a standardized test administered by over 14,000 schools around the country. The military aggressively promotes this test to school districts as a “free” career interest test which is then used by the military to obtain student information and to develop targeted recruitment pitches. With the ASVAB—which is offered at many area high schools—students do have the option not to take the test, or if they feel “forced” to take the test due to administrative pressure, students can use “Option 8” which prevents student information from being used for recruiting purposes. Student information is also released to the military when students take the PSAT test as students who indicate that they would like to release information to “educational institutions” are also giving authorization to have their information released to the military, despite the fact that this is not disclosed on the test.
