Apparently the NCLB has no funding for geography! This opinion from the A-AS talks about how there will be MORE soldiers but less geography students, leading to people going into battle in places they know little about.

This controversial provision requires that all public high schools accepting Title I funds grant military recruiters access to student information (i.e., names, addresses, phone numbers) unless parents sign a form authorizing school authorities to withhold it from the Pentagon. Otherwise, the information is included in a directory of a school's juniors and seniors and given to military recruiters. Surprisingly, since the act's passage in 2001, fewer than twelve percent of parents nationwide have withheld permission to have their children included in contact lists for recruiters. 

Although most school officials bristle at the provision because of privacy issues, few have been willing to oppose it, largely because the law specifically requires that schools grant access to military recruiters. It also threatens the loss of federal funding under NCLB's Title I if they turn them away. Further, recruiters must be admitted to school activities where they may conduct enlistment promotions.

One recent exception is the reaction of administrators in the Chicago Public schools. Principals will soon be requiring written notice from military recruiters forty-eight hours in advance of their school visits. They also plan to restrict the recruiters' conference space to prescribed areas in the high schools making hallways, cafeterias, gyms, and other common areas off-limits. Because of concerns over the frequency of visits and their duration, the actions of the Chicago schools are typical of many urban districts across the country trying to restrain the military's reach into the everyday schedules of the schools.

Remember that at the beginning of the school year, every parent needs to fill out an OPT OUT form to the school admnistrators, requesting that their children's information not be given to military recruiters. Every child and parent who decide that military is the answer ought to make that choice as a deliberate activity, rather than one that accidentally comes about just because NCLB gives info to the recruiters.

We have a section here on the Somervell County Salon website about what the GRISD policy as as well as what to do to take your child off the list.