Young Writers Society

I was horrified when i read this. All American listen closely your private infomation is getting handed to the Military without your knowing.

In the USA, under the No Child Left Behind Act, if you attend a high school that receives federal funding your school system is required to turn over your private information to the U.S. military for recruitment purposes! (With the exception of a few private schools, almost every school in the USA receives federal funding.) Your school is NOT required to tell you that they are giving your private information to the military.

YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF! Sec. 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act gives you the right to OPT OUT. This means that you can turn in a form, signed by your guardian or parent, which states that you do not want the military to have access to your private information. This will remove you from the list your school hands over to the military - but only for the school year during which you opted out. To keep your name and information out of the military's hands you must opt out each and every school year!

The site to use to opt out is.

http://militaryfreezone.org/

Yeah it should be illegal

Isn't that what Corey Talor covers at the end of the Roadrunner United song, The Rich Man?

Anyways, sounds like an invasion of privacy to me.

ugh... are you all daft or just silly? Where should I begin on this?

NUMBER ONE: Not a single one of you even lives in the United States and I doubt you have any understanding of what The No Child Left Behind Act even is!

NUMBER TWO: Are you all just elitist fools? I've always made it a personal point to not scorn or mock the domestic policies of another nation. When it comes to international policies, then I'll argue. But education? Give me a break. Personally, I could care less what any foreign countries do domestically.

NUMBER THREE: I think you all must really be daft, but it could be just plain ignorance.

NUMBER FOUR: If you were my age, I'd simply ignore you and probably call you an idiot. But since you're all younger than 18, let me take the chance to explain to you what's going on here:

The No Child Left Behind Act is a bipartisan federal law passed back in 2001 that establishes a system of standards for local jurisidictions that receive federal funding to abide by. Many teachers hate it since they a lot of them have to get recertified so that their school can be qualified to receive federal funding. But that's aside from the point here.

Under provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, the data of student testing is made available to any post-secondary institution upon request.

The United States Navel Academy, Air Force Academy, West Point, just to name the most famous ones, are all post-secondary institutions. And just as if Harvard or the University of Virginia request the scores of Johnny Appleseed from Providence Elementary, the Naval Academy can too. Those scores also include the name and address of the student.

Of course, on a fundamental libertarian level, I do agree with you, but for far different reasons than you're silly nonsensical logic.

Concentrate on you're own domestic politics; maybe then you're countries could compete with the United States in the international market! Heh.

Okay... Yes, the information (not much, mind) is provided to most any institute that requests it, however- many school districts now put a form similar to this in the yearly school registration papers, where the parent may opt you out from the military and/or the news media receiving any information. However, it's not really an issue for most. Many students are already interested in military training or schooling, and the ones that aren't generally know about this. If they don't, it's not a huge issue, because you're not truly obligated to the military in any way. (In the context of this topic.)

Actually, I think the NCLB is a really poor program for students and teachers (I wrote a persuasive essay on it), but this topic you've presented is the least of my worries.

David Guinness wrote:Actually, I think the NCLB is a really poor program for students and teachers (I wrote a persuasive essay on it), but this topic you've presented is the least of my worries.

^Hear hear! NCLB, in my opinion, is possibly the worst thing to happen to American education in a long time - but what you guys are stressing about? Absolutely ridiculous. Really. The worst that happens (if you're someone like me, who isn't at all interested in a career in the military), is that a very polite recruiter calls and asks you some questions. Two have called me, and both were very understanding about my decision not to pursue a military career or education. The best is that amazing schools - like the one I'll be attending come August 25 - can get hold of you and show you all the possibilities out there, beyond just the limited choices presented by school counselors.

So, it's really not the end of the world.

And might I just say how incredibly funny it is that NONE OF YOU ARE AMERICAN? Why do you care, really? Siegfried, it's nice that you're anti-American gov't and all (a lot of the time, I'd agree with you), but please. Mind your own business. There's really no reason for you to go throwing hissy fits about the domestic policy of nations in which you don't have citizenship. In fact, it's actually a) inane, b) pathetic, c) a plea for attention.

Your choice of the above.

?

All I said was that it seemed like an invasion of privacy. If a child's info is given out - without their or their parents permission (or even knowledge) - it is indeed an invasion of said child's privacy.

I don't care if I'm not American, as it makes little difference in the end. I can still be annoyed at how people are treated, regardless of where in the world they live.

And to finish this post off: Brian, please don't insult people for having different beliefs and ideals to you.

I think this is stupid. This debate. Who cares if the military gets your test or citizenship scores? It's not like that's a big deal. Infact, the only reason I can think that you wouldn't want someone to see your grades, would be because you flunked out.

Seriously, what's going to happen? The military might call you.

Scary! Not!

It's not like you'll be drafted or kidnapped.

Get over our evil American Government, Siegfried.

This is stupid.

It's not what they do with the info, it's the simple fact that they recieve it without permission (and in some cases, even knowledge) from the child.

If personal information about a person is being shared with other people, they should have given their permission for this to be done so. Some people may not want that information shared with strangers. Giving out someones personal details without their permission/knowledge is an infrigment on that person's personal life and freedoms.

It's also worth noting that sharing of personal information without permission is what leads to junk mail and spam.

In some cases, it can even lead to far worse things. I remember reading on the news that some paedophiles would get their hands on the personal information of children (for example, contact details) and a picture of them (without the child's permission, of course). The paedophiles would then post a picture of said children on their website, and people would pay the paedophile to have sex with that child. The paedophile would then force the child to have sex with the client.

Are the military using these children's personal information for such dark purposes? No. However, everyone (especially children) should not have their personal information shared with others without their permission/knowledge, as doing so can lead to some rather nasty situations.



Here's a list off arguments against the No Child Left Behind act, taken from wikipedia:

* Supports early learning, an approach criticized in Better Late Than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore.

* Requires public secondary schools to provide military recruiters the same access to facilities as a school provides to higher education institution recruiters. Schools are also required to provide contact information for every student to the military if requested, but students or parents can opt out of having their information shared. [7]

* Organizations such as ACORN have criticized the unwillingness of the federal government to "fully fund" the act. While promoted by President Bush and applauded by both parties, neither the Senate nor the White House has requested funding up to the authorized levels for several programs such as Title I. Republicans in Congress have viewed these authorized levels as spending caps, not spending promises, and have pointed out that President Clinton never requested the full amount of funding authorized under the previous ESEA law. [8]

* Testing is not coupled with plans and funding to remedy problems that might be detected by the testing. Instead, a system of increasing punishments is provided to take away resources from schools (i.e. from the students and employees of schools) which exhibit failing threshold scores.

* Some school districts object to the limitation created by the "scientifically based research standard."

* Because schools, districts, and states are punished if they fail to make adequate progress according to the goals they themselves establish, the incentives are to set expectations lower rather than higher [9] and to increase segregation by class and race and push low-performing students out of school altogether [10]. The schools, districts, and states are also potentially set to game the system by manipulating which students are included or excluded from test-taking (to enhance apparent school performance) and by creative reclassification of drop-outs (to reduce unfavorable statistics) [11].

* States and school districts should be granted greater freedom to target assistance to schools with the most extensive academic difficulties.

* Proponents of a strong public education system believe NCLB will potentially pave the way for a system of Federally funded vouchers, significantly weakening public education.

* NCLB violates conservative principles by federalizing education and setting a precedent for further erosion of state and local control. Libertarians and some conservatives believe that the federal government has no constitutional authority in education.

* Students with learning disabilities do not receive extra help when taking the standardized tests, and can jeopardize the assigned rating the entire school is given. While the Federal Department of Education has taken steps to try to resolve the issue, many still believe they have not done enough.
* Students who are learning English have a 3 year window to take assessments in their native language, after which they must demonstrate proficiency on an English language assessment. In practice, however, only 10 states test any students in their native language (almost entirely Spanish speakers).[12] The vast majority of English language learners are given English language assessments, which are neither valid nor reliable in measuring what they know.[13]

* Focus on improving the average student's education may ignore individual differences between students, and potentially harm both special and gifted education programs.

* Surveys of public school principals indicate that since the implementation of NCLB, instructional time has increased for reading, writing, and math (subjects tested under the law), and decreased for the arts, elementary social studies, and foreign languages.[14] Some critics of the law suggest it is also responsible for the elimination of certain extracurricular activities.

* NCLB places a focus on the standardized testing mandatory for each student, therefore forcing the educators to focus on points covered in testing rather than what they think is important for children to learn. Standardized tests can be irrelevant to students' developmental learning.

* While addressing the issue of "achievement gaps" (such as that between affluent and disadvantaged students) NCLB fails to address how possible "effort gaps" between the same groups affect the achievement gap. An effort gap can be attributed to such factors as hours of quality study time per week, diligence in completing homework assignments, attitude, discipline, and parental support.

* Standardized testing, the measure by which the Act evaluates competency, has been historically accused of cultural bias, and the practice of determining educational quality by testing students has been called into question.

* NCLB is not longitudinal, in that it looks at students in certain grades from year to year. Thus, the same group of students are not tested to measure the difference in performance between years, and differences between classes from year to year is ignored. Rather it compares one group in a particular grade level to a totally different group the next year in that grade level.

* NCLB places the focus on how the school is progressing toward AYP not the individual student



The same page also has a list of arguments for the act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind

Sureal wrote:?

All I said was that it seemed like an invasion of privacy. If a child's info is given out - without their or their parents permission (or even knowledge) - it is indeed an invasion of said child's privacy.

I don't care if I'm not American, as it makes little difference in the end. I can still be annoyed at how people are treated, regardless of where in the world they live.

And to finish this post off: Brian, please don't insult people for having different beliefs and ideals to you.

If you can put to where I insulted ideals and belief, show me. I insulted your intelligence, not your political or religious ideology.

"All I said was that it seemed like an invasion of privacy. If a child's info is given out - without their or their parents permission (or even knowledge) - it is indeed an invasion of said child's privacy."

I'm not sure if you read my post or if you're continuing to just be daft. One of my points is that you have no idea what you're talking about since you're not American. This is a domestic policy, and so I don't expect you to know much about it. But because you don't know much about it, you shouldn't get upset when people correct you on your high-minded stance.

Parents are notified beforehand, and they allowed to opt out. Indeed, the federal government is required to tell teachers and schools all this, and teachers and schools are required to tell parents. Parents are then given three choices before any tests are even taken:

1. Opt out altogether
2. Don't send scores to any military institution
3. Do nothing

Invasion of privacy? I agree actually, but since parents are indeed notified and the child knows, your argument is rather feeble. But this is a domestic policy, Sureal, and as thus, I really don't expect you to know anything at all about it. And indeed, I bet all you know about it is what Seigfreid quoted in the first post. You don't live in America, you didn't take the time to research the subject, and you don't know what you're talking about. That to me says you're a high-minded fool who hitches himself to any anti-american bandwagon that he can find.



Talking to Americans now, and regarding David's post, I agree about the NCLB, but my own opinion is that the entire Federal Department of Education needs to be abolished. Education is best left to local communities, and when you get the federal government involved, you get such nonsense as abstinence only education and, well, the NCLB act.

EDIT: Just saw Sureal's last post, and you really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? You don't even know how to properly research something, instead relying on wikipedia, which is a generally good resource for general knowledge, but not for researching.

Here's the actual text for the bill, which took me two minutes to find (I even highlighted the imporant stuff), read section 9527 a2, it directly contradicts everything you're saying Sureal.

SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION.

(a) POLICY-

(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.

(2) CONSENT- A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing described in paragraph (1) not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request.

(3) SAME ACCESS TO STUDENTS- Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to post secondary educational institutions or to prospective employers of those students.

(b) NOTIFICATION- The Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall, not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, notify principals, school administrators, and other educators about the requirements of this section.

(c) EXCEPTION- The requirements of this section do not apply to a private secondary school that maintains a religious objection to service in the Armed Forces if the objection is verifiable through the corporate or other organizational documents or materials of that school.

(d) SPECIAL RULE- A local educational agency prohibited by Connecticut State law (either explicitly by statute or through statutory interpretation by the State Supreme Court or State Attorney General) from providing military recruiters with information or access as required by this section shall have until May 31, 2002, to comply with that requirement.

Oh, if the parent's are told (and have to give their permission), then I have no beef with the act.

I don't pretend I'm not ignorant on the subject - heck, I hadn't really even heard of it before this subject.

And just to note: I'm not trying to be elitist, nor anti-American (and I'm sorry if that's how I came out - but just so y'know, you're coming off to me as being very elitist). I just saw (what looked like) an invasion of privacy and spoke out against it.

As the parents give their permission, I retract my arguments.

This is going to be my last post in this thread...


The last post by Sureal gives me pause and I apologize if I did offend you Sureal.

No problem - after all, debates are (or should be) about learning, not about beating each other up .

One last post... lol

Sureal wrote:No problem - after all, debates are (or should be) about learning, not about beating each other up .

Thanks for being gracious I get very carried away when debating and tend to get a lot more heated and fiery than I really am...

Not sure if this is necessary anymore or not, but please watch it.