Pizza is a Small Price to Pay for Cannon Fodder

Another unfortunate aspect of the cynical No Child Left Behind Legislation is the requirement that military recruiters have access to high school students on public school campuses (in order to continue any federal funds the school may receive). Especially cynical in that the young people most likely left out, if not behind in the era of teaching to the test are those who are also most easily preyed upon by military recruiters. Our school bulletin announces twice a week that the Navy recruiter will be on campus in the career center and in the courtyard (where students eat lunch) twice a week. Today two recruiters were out in full force with boxes and boxes of pizza, giving out slices and free Navy pens. Notably, the students being courted by the two recruiters (at least when I saw them) were African-American. I suggested to several students that all I had to give them was free advice - that they had other options in life than signing on with the Navy, to which the recruiter responded that she was fighting for my freedom to say just that. After I responded that our freedoms are guaranteed by the Constitution and an informed electorate, not by killing Iraqis on the other side of the globe, it was clear that we weren't going to convince each other and I left.

Our principal, like her predecessor, tells me that recruiters' access to students (frequency, location and manner) is determined by the school board. Also, I am again told that recruiters have a right to as much access as college recruiters. In fact, in the thirteen years I have taught at this school I have never seen a college recruiter hanging out with students in the courtyard, giving out free food. Recruiters meet in certain classrooms or the career center by drop-ins or appointments. Students come to them. Military recruiters have far greater access than any other off-campus recruiter I know of.

In April, our Mock Trial team has been invited to spend a day at the county courthouse observing appeal cases. We are required to obtain signed parent permission slips in order for students to attend. On the other hand, the military also has access to demographic information (name, address, age, etc.) on any student on campus unless, at the beginning of the year, parents submit a signed refusal to allow information on their child to be released to the military. How ironic that parents must give written consent to allow their children to spend one school day at a local courthouse two miles from campus, but unless they proactively sign a refusal to consent, personal information on their child will be open to the military recruiters. Which is the greater risk?

I have several questions:

1. Are all sites recruited equally? Colleagues teaching on campuses in more affluent neighborhoods tell me that they can't remember the last time they saw a recruiter talking with students.

2. How much of these recruiting ploys is the School Board actually aware of?

3. How much and what type of counter-recruiting efforts would be permitted at the same venue (courtyard where the students congregate)?

4. Who could successfully do the counter-recruiting and what form would it take?