Recruiting kids: The Pentagon leaves no child behind

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian

posted August 26, 2005

BRATTLEBORO — Shuffled inside the voluminous back-to-school packet of forms and information that will go home with every high school student in the coming weeks may be a particularly important yet easily overlooked notice.

Information telling parents and guardians how they can advise a high school not to give their child’s name and contact information to the Pentagon might be a form letter that parents can sign and return; it might be a brief paragraph in the student handbook. Or it might not be there at all.

There is no uniform way in which high schools in Vermont and around the country inform parents of their right to refuse to surrender their child’s information to the Pentagon, and no guarantee that information about opting out is being provided to parents, as required by law.

If schools err, often it’s on the side of funding. Failure to comply with the No Child Left Behind provision could mean a cutoff of federal education money, as some two dozen California schools discovered when they attempted to impose an opt-in policy, only to face intense state and federal pressure.

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