The Village Voice: Runnin' Scared

Military Recuiters Gone Wild: Report

posted: 5:57 PM, September 6, 2007 by Michael Clancy

The Department of Education is not doing enough to protect students from the aggressive tactics of military recruiters in high schools, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and the New York Civil Liberties Union charged in a report released Thursday.

The core of the report, titled "We Want You(th)," is an unscientific survey of nearly 1,000 students at 45 public schools where military recruitment was thought to be most prevalent.

Among the reports findings:

21 percent of the students polled said classroom instructional time was given to military recruiters, a violation of Department of Education policy.

40 percent of students polled said their schools did not give them op-out forms at the beginning of the academic year. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, school officials must handover student information to military recruiters including students names, addresses and telephone, unless the students "opt out" of this requirement.

NYCLU Donna Lieberman said of the report:

"The time is long past due for the DOE to ensure that all students know and can exercise their rights to opt-out of military databases, to ensure that not a minute of instruction time be spent with military recruiters, and to ensure that military recruiters are not given free run of schools to meet their war-time quotas."

categories: Terror and War

Comments

Leave the kids alone! My plan? Start using prisoners to fill the gap. Those guys are ripe for the pickin! They're angry, hungry and this would give them a chance to kick some ass and earn a paycheck at the same time! Get them out of our overflowing prisons and let them fight the war that Bush would rather send an innocent kid to fight. I do see a few problems with this idea but it's just as good as anything else that's going on with this war.

Posted by: Sgt Bilko at September 6, 2007 10:42 PM

It is true that the forms are not readily available, and those who don't fill them out are subjected to calls from recruiters who don't readily identify themselves as such --recruiters who sound like teenagers. There are lots of problems with the "No child Left behind" Act. But this to me is one of the most diabolical aspects. But hey, it's for the children, they're doing it for the children.

Posted by: beetle bailey at September 7, 2007 11:25 AM

I fail to see a problem here at all. If we're going to start wars all around the war in an effort to protect ourselves then somebody's got to go and fight. If the kids start young enough they'll never know what they're missing.

Posted by: Colonel Klink at September 7, 2007 11:48 AM

Down here in the south, you can't keep them away. They are like fucking fleas. Bloodsuckers.

Posted by: DaisyDeadhead at September 7, 2007 1:03 PM

Have we gone completely haywire? To be taken away from their studies or time away from family at home to entertain Bush's barrage of warfare?? Are children not permitted to be children because of some shmuck in the White House? We haven't experienced this type of bombardment where I live and knowing that it's on its way I'll do everything in my power to fight it. I don't want to be in the same boat as Daisy Deadhead. With disgust, Your loving Captain

Posted by: Cap'n Kangaroo at September 7, 2007 2:49 PM

My son's best friend since childhood just enlisted, He wanted to be in the MP's. He was told that it required five years of training.After he inlisted they told him there were no openings for that branch of service. The first duty he was assigned was suicide watch on ill soldiers. I have had many members of my family serve but I think this is a breach of contract.

Posted by: bethelkid at September 8, 2007 5:54 PM

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