High schools to share info with military

While the No Child Left Behind law gives millions of dollars to compliant public schools for general education, it also says branches of the military can obtain lists from school districts of every high school upperclassman.

The military has the right to request the name, address and phone number of every public high school junior and senior in America for recruitment purposes, according to the guideline, signed in January.

Before the new law, military recruiters could meet and exchange information with young people only if students sought them out and only after getting permission from the school district. Now, unless parents or students submit signed opt-out forms, the military will be able to call teenagers on the telephone or send letters directly to their home mailboxes.

This method of recruitment is necessary in times where there is no forced conscription, said Bob Weintraub, headmaster of Brookline High School, hypothesizing on why the government included this clause.

‘[The military] wants to have access to kids before they graduate from high school,’ Weintraub said. ‘That’s what they have to do because there is no draft.’

Each district will choose its own way of notifying parents that their child’s information could be released to the armed forces.

‘We sent home a policy handbook at the beginning of the year that informs parents that they should send a letter to their child’s principal or headmaster if they don’t want them to be included in military recruitment,’ said Jonathan Palumbo, spokesman for Boston Public Schools.

Boston schools, which contain 8,000 high school juniors and seniors, have had only about a dozen opt-out forms returned. Information about the law was sent home with students in seven different languages, Palumbo said.

‘We’ve had no calls from parents,’ Palumbo said when asked about negative parent reactions.

Weintraub said he sees the provision as a unique recruiting tool.

‘I don’t think it’s a bad idea that we give the military a list of kids,’ Weintraub said.

Weintraub, who said that he only learned of this aspect of the No Child Left Behind law when it was recently noted in the media, also said that he does not have a problem handing over the names, addresses and phone numbers of high school juniors and seniors.

‘I found out about it this morning and I haven’t even talked about it with my administration,’ Weintraub said. ‘But my gut reaction is that I don’t mind giving access to the armed forces. All it is is recruiting information.’

He will gauge parent reaction to this portion of the law at parent-teacher organization meetings, he said, and a formal plan on how to handle the situation will evolve over the next few weeks.