that the No Child Left Behind Act
requires high schools
to turn over student information to
military recruiters?

On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, which
he said would revolutionize education policies. But hidden deep within the
670-page piece of legislation is Section 9528, which states:


each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall
provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher
education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone
listings.


Public and private high schools must comply with this provision or risk losing
federal funding. However, the legislation also stipulates that:


A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the
students name, address, and telephone listing not be released without prior
written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school
shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any
request.


Unfortunately, many high school officials are not complying with this last
provision. Under pressure from military recruiters and unaware that they must
receive prior consent from parents, high school officials are turning over
names, address and telephone numbers of students without giving them or their
parents the opportunity to refuse the release of that information. The
military does not hide the fact that it uses this information to aggressively
recruit high school students often against the will of parents and students.
Nor is it a secret that these recruiting tactics target minority students. http://grassrootsvoices.org/ufpstudent.html