Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

News :: Children & Education

Milwaukee school board votes to educate about military recruiting

On August 25 the Milwaukee School Board voted to increase awareness in the school district and provide more information to parents about the “opt-out” provision in the “No Child Left Behind” act. The administration also pledged to review the activities of the military recruiters...It will now be up to the counter-recruitment movement to hold the board accountable and to see to it that real action is taken.
nodraft.jpg
Counter-recruitment growing nationwide...

Under pressure,
Milwaukee school board votes to educate about military recruiting

By Bryan G. Pfeifer

On August 25 the Milwaukee School Board voted to increase awareness in the school district and provide more information to parents about the “opt-out” provision in the “No Child Left Behind” act. The administration also pledged to review the activities of the military recruiters (www.jsonline.com).

The Pentagon, as part of the act, automatically receives student information including names, addresses, telephone numbers and emails unless parents or a student 18 or older submits an opt-out form.

As the vote took place, Riverside students and those from Wauwatosa and Shorewood high schools which are not part of the Milwaukee district, hoisted “Education not militarism” signs. These students and their allies are fed up with military preying techniques and the U.S. war on Iraq. Forty-four soldiers from Wisconsin, the majority between 18 and 30 and largely from formerly unionized industrial manufacturing areas, have died in Iraq.

The Milwaukee struggle is taking place amid growing counter-recruitment activity across the country which is fast becoming a central pillar of the anti-war movement.

Although the final board resolution was a watered down version of one originally submitted by progressive board member Peter Blewett, it is a victory nonetheless for, at the very least, educating the wider public about the opt-out provision and actual recruiting techniques. Blewett’s resolution would’ve limited recruiters to three days of visits per school year.

“One of our fundamental obligations is to protect the privacy of students and their families,” said Blewett who voted in favor of the final resolution along with the eight other board members present.

The final resolution directs the district leadership to make available to parents the opt-out information in the act and to outline all “cost-effective” means of providing this to parents. The school board estimates that now less than one percent of students or parents in Milwaukee exercise their opt-out right largely due to not knowing they can.

Previous to the August 25 vote, over 60 people attended the August 23 Milwaukee School Board’s Rules and Policy Committee and 18 testified in favor of restrictions on recruiters. No military recruiters or those in support of them attended. Students from the working-class and majority student-of-color Riverside High School, testified about the sexist behavior of recruiters, their aggressiveness, and focus on recruiting African American and Latin@ students. Due to the students and their allies’ actions, School Superintendent William Andrekopoulos stated at the meeting he would “investigate” the recruiter’s activities in city schools.

It will now be up to the counter-recruitment movement to hold the board accountable and to see to it that real action is taken.

-- 30 --

Union labor donated.
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software