From The Chicago Tribune, 7/5/03:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...l=chi-news-hed

Military recruiters get school directories

Pentagon says it needs to fill the ranks, but critics complain about
aggressive sales pitches

By Douglas Holt
Tribune staff reporter

When an Air Force recruiter recently strode out of Evanston Township
High School with a student directory, it marked a major turning point
for a school that had long resisted handing over the highly coveted
information to the military.

The brief exchange last month came only after loud protests from some
parents who opposed releasing the directory, a list of roughly 1,000
names, addresses and telephone numbers of juniors and seniors.

But under a little-noticed provision tucked into the No Child Left
Behind Act--the sweeping education-reform law designed to identify and
overhaul failing schools--school administrators had little choice.

The law gives the military unprecedented access to all high school
directories of upperclassmen--a mother lode of information used for
mass-mailing recruiting appeals and telephone solicitations.

"You can touch a person that may not have known we were out there,"
said Air Force Sgt. Derrick Russ, who recruits in the Chicago area.

Before the law took effect last July, 12 percent of the nation's
public high schools--some 2,500, including Evanston--denied the
military access to student databases, according to the Pentagon.

Now, only six high schools are holding out, said a spokeswoman, who
declined to identify the schools.

School districts in the Chicago area are dealing with the law in
distinctly different ways--particularly in how aggressively they have
informed parents of its provisions.

Some have done little to tell parents of their legal right to have
their children's names withheld from recruiters.

No questions asked

For example, at Naperville District 203, Stevenson High School in
Lincolnshire and Elgin-based Unit School District 46, officials
stressed they have long provided the lists to the military, no
questions asked.

Parental notification often has amounted to a brief mention in
newsletters and a disclosure statement included among student
registration papers.

It's a different story at Evanston, where high school officials
repeatedly informed parents of their rights.

Responding to complaints, the district even extended the deadline for
parents to have their children's names removed from the list.

Nearly one-third of them, 491, did so at the school, which has 1,509
juniors and seniors.

Similarly, parents at Lake Forest and New Trier High Schools can
choose to have the information withheld from the military, but turned
over to colleges and universities.

Driving the provision was the concern that federally funded schools
have an obligation to cooperate with the armed forces and provide
students with information on military careers, said U.S. Rep. David
Vitter (R-La.), who sponsored the recruiting amendment to the No Child
Left Behind Act.

"I think it's a disservice to the country and the military to shut
down access to qualified young kids who may be very interested in
military service," said Vitter, who was concerned some high schools
had slammed the door shut on recruiters.

The law is designed to help the nation maintain an all-volunteer
military force that requires nearly 210,000 young people to enter
full-time service annually, with 150,000 more joining the reserves or
National Guard.

Over the last decade, the cost of recruiting nearly doubled from
$6,500 to $11,600 a recruit as an increasing percentage of high school
graduates opted for college and as unemployment rates were relatively
low, defense officials said.

The issue of military recruiting has provoked little discussion at
many Chicago-area schools.

Patriotism cited in Elgin

Elgin District 46 spokesman Larry Ascough ridiculed schools that take
issue with providing student directories.

"I could never imagine this being a controversy here," he said.

"This town, they're very patriotic."

Stevenson High School put a two-paragraph item in its "Minuteman"
newsletter last January noting the law.

"While this has been an unusual development for some schools, it is
not for Stevenson. The school has willingly provided names and
addresses [but not phone numbers] to the armed forces for more than
two decades," the notice said.

In the Chicago Public Schools system--home to 99,000 high school
students--only 17 parents have opted to have their children's names
removed from recruiting lists, said spokeswoman Joi Mecks.

Parents were notified of the law in a school newsletter, a memo to
parents and on the district's Web site, she said.

"They may have received information and didn't pay attention to it,"
she said.

"Or it may be a non-issue."

The law also applies to private schools that get federal funds, such
as the prestigious Chicago Latin School, which received about $40,000
in federal money last year.

But so far, military recruiters have evinced little interest in the
school, officials said.

"In the last six years, we've never received a request of information
from a military recruiter," spokeswoman Evelyne Girardet said.

"It's a little embarrassing."

Concerned about the law's impact, some educators complain recruiters
oversell the military's benefits, downplay the risks, use dogged sales
tactics and prey on poor students.

"I think they glorify the military," said Marilyn Madden, Evanston
Township High School's director of pupil personnel services, who
opposes turning over student lists.

"I don't think it's a good idea. I think it's more kids of color who
feel like this is the only way to go to college. They may not make it
to college if there's going to be a war."

Some educators say they've seen too many students come away feeling
misled.

Students have been told they could train as pilots or nuclear
engineers, only to learn after enlisting that they don't qualify, said
Michael Johnson, executive director of the Illinois Association of
School Boards.

Recruiters also have come under fire for unscrupulous tactics.

About 50 recruiters in the Navy's Chicago district faced disciplinary
action in 2001 after an investigation found they falsified records to
qualify recruits who didn't meet education requirements.

Completing medical forms

Two recent recruits interviewed by the Tribune said they were urged to
answer "no" to potentially disqualifying medical questions when they
reported for military physicals.

Evanston resident William Hicks, 18, said recruiters in Virginia,
where he lived until this year, gave him a practice medical
questionnaire "so you know what to put on the paper."

Waukegan resident Ari Soto, 19, said, "The recruiters actually told me
to say `no' to everything."

On her military entrance physical, she said she concealed that she had
been hospitalized for a dislocated knee and had chickenpox twice.

She also didn't mention a slight case of asthma, she said.

Bill Kelo, spokesman for the Army's Chicago recruiting effort,
declined to comment on Soto's allegations.

Soto also learned firsthand another concern voiced by educators:

It's hard to change your mind after an initial commitment.

She signed up for the Delayed Entry Program, which allows recruits as
young as 17 to agree to join the military within one year.

Soto broke her agreement with the military, which wasn't legally
binding, and had a baby girl in January.

But not before recruiters repeatedly called her, requesting that she
submit to a physical to prove she was pregnant, she said.

The experience left her embittered.

"I think they sugarcoated everything and told lies just to get you to
sign up," she said.

Though declining to speak about any specific recruit, Kelo stressed
that high school students who commit to the all-volunteer armed forces
but change their plans typically can get out of it.

In most cases, all it takes is a letter, he said.

"It doesn't serve our purposes to do anything to put people in the
services who don't want to be there," he said.

Dickell Fonda, an Evanston Township High School parent, said a Navy
recruiter called on the telephone last winter and asked to talk to her
17-year-old son.

Angered by phone call

"They asked him what he wanted to do after high school," Fonda said.

"He said he was planning on going to college.

The recruiter said very clearly to him, `Now, do you really think your
parents are going to pay for that?'"

Fonda said the exchange left her so enraged that she went to a Navy
recruiting station and had them delete her son's name from their
computer.

"We're in a mode of war without end, I'm afraid, so it's a pertinent
issue," she said.

"It's a dangerous time for children to be making these choices."

__________________________________________________ _

"Though declining to speak about any specific recruit, Kelo stressed
that high school students who commit to the all-volunteer armed forces
but change their plans typically can get out of it.

In most cases, all it takes is a letter, he said."


Protect your children. Get those letters out quickly, ladies and
gentlemen.

Harry