No Child Left Un-recruited

The U.S. Army isn't exactly recruiting me and I wouldn't say that I spend time thinking of ways to avoid their courtship (despite the fact that we all know they're in dire need of a female soldier who can't even reach plates off the top shelf in her kitchen). But as I searched through the small stack of papers that arrived in the mail a few weeks before the start of my senior year at Shaker Heights High School (outside of Cleveland, Ohio), I recognized that I was witnessing something fishier than the outcome of the 2000 election.

It was a form addressed to students and their families that caught my eye, and being the investigative journalist that I am, I quickly realized the form gave me the option of prohibiting the government from obtaining my personal information through the school in accordance with a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001.

Stuck inconspicuously at the end of the 670-page bill near "Physical Education Program Authorization," section 9528 -- "Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information" - -outlines a new form of military access to student information that makes the bill seem more like No Child Left Un-recruited.

Commonly known as the "Opt-Out Provision," section 9528 requires schools receiving federal funding to share all students' names, telephone numbers and addresses upon military request unless students opt-out by making a written request that their information be kept from military databases. The government's justification lies in the fact that the military has just as much of a legal right to access students' "directory information" as prospective employers and college administration offices.

Needless to say, I was more shocked than Bush at an uncensored press conference. Although I've always felt the effects of NCLB on a student's education have been about as productive as our search for Osama bin Laden, this was the first time that my personal life was directly influenced by the government's legislation. My fellow students and I have all been through the agony of waking up early for the endless barrage of required state testing and witnessed the stress it puts on our administrations, but penciling in bubbles for four hours has never put our homes, our identities, our privacy on the frontlines.

According to the Resource Center for Nonviolence, schools are handling the requirement in a variety of ways, which is why the database is collecting information faster than an undercover Times reporter. My own school, being a beacon of liberal-minded folk (you'd never know we're in Ohio), provides a form sent directly to families allowing them to make the written request. But opting-out of the data exchange automatically excludes students from having their information published in the school's Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) directory.

For me, choosing whether I should opt-out was a slightly bigger dilemma than deciding between honors or Advanced Placement Calculus. There was no question I did not want to release my information to the military, but I was forced to weigh my choices. I could either free my identity into the battle ground of military recruitment tactics so that my personal information would be listed by the PTO for friends and co-workers to use when needed, or I could lock my information inside the barracks of personal privacy. One option meant that anyone in the government could reach me through a quick search in their extensive databases, the other that my phone would sit idly for the next year. (As the editor in chief of my high school newspaper and an active member or leader of numerous other activities, students and teachers need to reach me on a daily basis.)

Shaker schools district Director of Communications Peggy Caldwell, believes the administration felt students opting-out of the national database would have to also opt-out of the school directory in order to comply with the act's requirement of equal access for military recruiters and college admissions committees. "The Feds have put schools in a difficult position with this provision of NCLB. The law and procedures in this area are murky, and there are potential conflicts between NCLB, privacy laws and open records laws," she said, noting that the school is revisiting their policy before the 2006-2007 school year. "We want to honor the wishes of our students and their parents, but we also want to comply with the law and make sure students and parents are aware of the ramifications."