Something Disturbing about No Child Left Behind...
 

...if it's true.

http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/21879/

"There is a provision that is buried in the No Child Left Behind Act. If you attend a public high school, your school system is required to turn over your private information to the U.S. military unless you opt out. 'Opt out' means that you need to turn in a form, signed by a guardian or a parent, stating that you do not want the military to have your private information. It is basically the exact opposite of the age-old school permission slip, where if you wanted to go on a school field trip or if you wanted the school to give out your private information, you had to turn in a form signed by your parent saying that it was OK. Instead, the school is going to give away your private information to the military, specifically for recruitment targeting, unless you hand in a form telling them not to do so.

Of course, 99 percent of the population really knows nothing about this provision in the No Child Left Behind Act. Most public schools haven't bothered to tell their students and they're simply giving their students' information out. When we heard about that, obviously, we were dumbfounded. It is just another example of the arrogance of this Bush administration. And the arrogance of the people who drafted this ridiculous piece of legislation that is supposedly going to be something that is good for children's education. This is the kind of stuff that the young people in this country are made disillusioned by, I believe. It is one of things that make me feel disillusioned. We felt like we needed to make kids aware of this, especially because they are our main audience. They are the people who we usually connect to with our music."

...more...

If by "private information" they mean gender, name, and address, I assure you most high schools have been giving this information out about graduating seniors for years, both to the military and other private organizations. Hospitals give out the information of people who recently had babies so they can be targeted with formula and diaper ads. Local governments give out the information of people who have just filed new business names so they can be targeted by small-business-loan people. Your name and address are really not "private information" anymore.

Now, if on the other hand, they're giving out your grades, and which extracurricular activities you participated in, and how many times you had to serve in detention, that's a little weird. Maybe even "disturbing," I dunno.

I've pretty much decided that one of the things I going to give my children when they graduate from college is a new identity.

I think I'm more worried about giving out my email than my address these days, If they want to post me things I'll just throw it away, or, if they kindly include a return envelope you simply place the material from one in the other and post both back.

On that return envelope note ... has anyone else noticed that some of the more aggressive credit card companies are now "coding" their free return envelopes ... presumably so they can prosecute people for mailing them things other than their application in said envelope?

I've noticed Captial One doing this, and I think Providian ... anyone else catch this?

prosecute for what exactly? if they tried to prosecute me for that I'd invoice them for my time picking up their crap out of my mailbox and putting it in the bin.

It depends on what the "things other than the application" are...

I'll check the next batch before I put them in the shredder and see if it mentions it.

If they were coding them for that reason, they'd let people know about it. More likely they're coding them to make them easier to sort out at their end (before opening the envelope).

If you feel like annoying them with no risk, just send back the envelope empty. No need to seal it, and it still costs them a few cents.

or take a black marker and blacken out the coding, effectively making them not machine processable anymore, taking more time and resources to hand sort their own snailspam

By the way....

Justin Sane and Pat Thetic?

pfbbt!!!

You're required to register for Selective Service at 18(all 18-25 yr. old males in the U.S.) so I would assume that the military already has this information for the majority of people they'd want to give the 'intelligence test' to.

I'd think that with Selective Service and the national census they would have more than enough information.

I'm curious as to what information the SS gets compares to what the schools are required to reveal.

exactly.. six of one...

I suppose the only people "protected" by opt out are those under 18. But then those who tend to finish highschool early tend not to attend public schools ;)

I turned 18 in college, so SS registration wouldn't have helped any high school recruiters. (and I did go to public schools)