Students rebuffing military recruiters

Students rebuffing military recruiters

More high schoolers in state opt out of lists

By Maria Sacchetti and Jenna Russell, Globe

Staff
The Boston Globe
November 13, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/artic

les/2005/11/13/students_rebuffing
_military_recruiters/


More than 5,000 high school students in five of

the
state's largest school districts have removed

their
names from military recruitment lists, a trend

driven
by continuing casualties in Iraq and a

well-organized
peace movement that has urged students to avoid

contact
with recruiters.

The number of students removing their names has

jumped
significantly over the past year, especially in

school
systems with many low-income and minority

students,
where parents and activists are growing

increasingly
assertive in challenging military recruiters'

access to
young people.

Since 2002, under the federal No Child Left

Behind law,
high schools have been required to provide

lists of
students' names, telephone numbers, and

addresses to
military recruiters who ask for them, as well

as
colleges and potential employers. Students who

do not
wish to be contacted -- or their parents --

notify
their school districts in writing.

In Boston, about 3,700 students, or 19 percent

of those
enrolled in the city's high schools, have

removed their
names from recruiting lists. At Cambridge

Rindge and
Latin School, 952 high school students, more

than half
the student body, ordered the school system not

to give
their names to the military this year.

Overall, approximately 18 percent of the public

high
school students eligible in Cambridge, Boston,
Worcester, Lowell, and Fall River have opted to

remove
their names. Though no official national

statistics are
available, a group founded six months ago to

raise
awareness of the law said visitors to its

website have
downloaded 37,000 copies of a form that can be

used to
remove students' names from the recruiting

lists.

"There's momentum you can see," said Felicity

Crush,
spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Leave

My Child
Alone project. "As soon as people become aware

of it,
they start to take action."

Students cite the rising death toll in Iraq as

a key
factor for their lack of interest in the

military, but
also acknowledge concerns raised by their

parents.

Gwen Claiborne, 18, a senior at Madison Park

Technical
Vocational High School in Roxbury, said she had

her
name removed from the call list at the urging

of her
father, who served in the military.

"It's much more scary now," said Claiborne, who

wants
to be an electrician. "A whole bunch of troops

are
dying."

Lidija Ristic, 17, a senior at Cambridge Rindge

and
Latin, fled war-torn Serbia with her family

when she
was 4. Now an opponent of the war in Iraq, she

said she
feels urban students are especially being

targeted by
recruiters.

"I'm just for peace," she said. "I think it's
horrible that they come here and try to recruit
people."

In interviews, military officials downplayed

the
significance of the trend, and said they do not

track
the number of students on the lists from year

to year.
They stress that the contact information from

high
schools is only one way to reach potential

recruits,
and there are alternatives, such as motor

vehicle
registration databases, college day fairs at

the
schools, or visits to shopping malls.

One Massachusetts Army recruiting commander,

however,
expressed concern that school officials'

increasing
efforts to accommodate students who want their

names
omitted are causing delays in the Army

obtaining the
contact lists. More than two months into the

school
year, roughly one-third of the 75 public high

schools
in communities north of Boston have not handed

over
their lists yet, said Captain Mark Spear, based

in
Woburn.

"About 35 percent are still delinquent, and

we're
haggling back and forth, and they're saying the

opt-out
[period] hasn't ended," he said. "By this time

of year
we would like to have the names in hand."

Lowell High School was among the schools still
accepting opt-outs late last week, and had not

yet
handed over its list to recruiters. "They get
impatient, but we will respond in proper time,"

said
Headmaster William Samaras. "At times you're

pushed,
and so you push back."

The No Child Left Behind law requires school

systems to
inform parents and students that they have the

right to
withhold their names from recruiters or other

groups,
and many school systems, including Boston,

include an
opt-out form in student handbooks. But

activists say
some schools have not done enough to inform

families of
their options, and that some parents do not

realize
their child's information has been passed on

until they
begin receiving brochures about the armed

services or
phone calls at home from recruiters.

Several local antiwar groups, including the

American
Friends Service Committee and United for

Justice with
Peace, have worked in recent months to spread

the word
about the provision and distribute postcards

that
families can send in to their schools to remove

their
children's names.

"We know that military recruiters create

profiles,"
said Mariama White-Hammond, executive director

of
Project HIP-HOP, a Boston youth organization

that has
assisted students in taking their names off the

lists.
"They're not going to recruit rich kids from

Newton.
They're going to recruit our kids."

At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, peace

activists
handed out leaflets to students explaining the
provision last fall and this fall. In Fall

River, the
number of students who removed their names

jumped from
40 last year to 225 this year, after school

officials,
responding to a parents' concerns, sent home

notices
about the law and ran an announcement on the

school TV
station, an official said.

The military is stepping up its marketing

efforts, with
a new ad campaign launched by the Pentagon this

fall
aimed at persuading parents to be more open to

their
children enlisting. The ads urge parents to

"make it a
two-way conversation" if their children raise

the idea
of joining the military.

Some school leaders are skeptical of peace

activists'
campaign to separate military recruiters from

students,
and question whether young people really

understand the
issue. At Madison Park in Roxbury, activists

descended
on the school this year with banners and

postcards,
said Principal Charles McAfee, whose son is in

the
Coast Guard. "A lot of [students] didn't really

know
what they were signing," he said. "I don't know

how
you can articulate that [argument] in five

minutes."

In addition, not every urban school has seen

large
numbers of students asking to be left off

recruiting
lists. In Brockton, fewer than a dozen made the
request.

And for some students, the military remains an
attractive option. Alan Bonifaz, a senior at

Madison
Park, wants to be an auto technician, and

thinks the
military will offer training, money, and

adventure.
"I'm inspired by people going to war," said the

18-
year-old.
___

Jenna Russell can be reached at

jrussell@globe.com.
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at

msacchetti@globe.com.

--
Darren W. Lyle
Boston, Massachusetts
The House of Four Cats

http://dwlyle.blogspot.com/

====