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DC schools slap the hands of military recruiters, ban ASVAB test from public schools...
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| Also listed in: SVVSD Concerned about Military Recruitment | Veterans for Progress |
Got this email this morning from the VVAW news net, and thought it might be important to those of you who would rather not have your children fighting the oil industry's wars for them. It doesn't seem like a lot, but its a lot more official than standing on a street corner with signs and facing the possibility of illegal assembly charges. It read:
"The District of Columbia Public Schools, apparently responding to multiple requests by city residents and recent experiences in neighboring jurisdictions, has taken the extraordinary step of banning the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test from all public schools in Washington, DC.
In a letter dated February 29, 2008, Sara Wilson, of the Critical Response Team of the Office of the Chancellor wrote to DC activist John Judge, "After speaking with Kimberly Hood-Berry, the Deputy Chief for Academic Support Services and the Head Counselor, Merita Carter, they have decided to look for an alternative career exploration test to be used in place of ASVAB. While they are searching for the best alternative, counselors will be informed not to use ASVAB."
Last week, officials from neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland were outraged when they discovered the military had not informed school officials of their option to withhold private information, including social security numbers and ASVAB test results, from military recruiters. Federal regulations require the military to inform school districts of their right to withhold test information from recruiters.
The ASVAB is administered to 605,000 public school children every year. Although internal military documents identify the ASVAB as a recruiting device, it is marketed in schools as a "career exploration program".
This development has the potential to bring down the ASVAB across the country. That's how angry school officials are becoming.
This form, provided by military representatives to Prince George's County, MD School Officials, omits Option 8:
http://dc.indymedia.org/media/anti-warwar/display/35882/index.php
School officials in Montgomery, Maryland were also unaware of the option to withhold test results from military recruiting services. When they learned of Option 8 two years ago, Montgomery officials changed their policy by requiring parental permission to take the test and selecting Option 8 in schools across the sprawling district.
See USMEPCOM Regulation 601.4 Personnel Procurement Student Testing Program 25 July, 2005, pages 12 & 13 for an explanation of the various options available to public school systems:
http://www.mepcom.army.mil/publications/pdf/regs/r-0601-004.pdf
Have you contacted your school system about the ASVAB release option they select? Have you downloaded the form that has ignited this firestorm of controversy and do you understand its volatile contents? This is not a spectator sport. We have school officials in one, and possibly two major districts, who are making calls to fellow administrators across the country, to warn them about the military's deceptive practices. We can kill this insidious recruiting tool if you would make a call or send an email to your superintendent.
- Pat Elder
Bethesda, MD
"The District of Columbia Public Schools, apparently responding to multiple requests by city residents and recent experiences in neighboring jurisdictions, has taken the extraordinary step of banning the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test from all public schools in Washington, DC.
In a letter dated February 29, 2008, Sara Wilson, of the Critical Response Team of the Office of the Chancellor wrote to DC activist John Judge, "After speaking with Kimberly Hood-Berry, the Deputy Chief for Academic Support Services and the Head Counselor, Merita Carter, they have decided to look for an alternative career exploration test to be used in place of ASVAB. While they are searching for the best alternative, counselors will be informed not to use ASVAB."
Last week, officials from neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland were outraged when they discovered the military had not informed school officials of their option to withhold private information, including social security numbers and ASVAB test results, from military recruiters. Federal regulations require the military to inform school districts of their right to withhold test information from recruiters.
The ASVAB is administered to 605,000 public school children every year. Although internal military documents identify the ASVAB as a recruiting device, it is marketed in schools as a "career exploration program".
This development has the potential to bring down the ASVAB across the country. That's how angry school officials are becoming.
This form, provided by military representatives to Prince George's County, MD School Officials, omits Option 8:
http://dc.indymedia.org/media/anti-warwar/display/35882/index.php
School officials in Montgomery, Maryland were also unaware of the option to withhold test results from military recruiting services. When they learned of Option 8 two years ago, Montgomery officials changed their policy by requiring parental permission to take the test and selecting Option 8 in schools across the sprawling district.
See USMEPCOM Regulation 601.4 Personnel Procurement Student Testing Program 25 July, 2005, pages 12 & 13 for an explanation of the various options available to public school systems:
http://www.mepcom.army.mil/publications/pdf/regs/r-0601-004.pdf
Have you contacted your school system about the ASVAB release option they select? Have you downloaded the form that has ignited this firestorm of controversy and do you understand its volatile contents? This is not a spectator sport. We have school officials in one, and possibly two major districts, who are making calls to fellow administrators across the country, to warn them about the military's deceptive practices. We can kill this insidious recruiting tool if you would make a call or send an email to your superintendent.
- Pat Elder
Bethesda, MD
What change do you want NOW?
Posted Nov 21, 2008 2:33pm
Comments (1)
Must it be elected officials?
Posted Nov 21, 2008 2:31pm
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Talkingpointsmemo hiring again!
Posted Nov 19, 2008 1:44pm
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Group calls on CSU to reject Allard as chancellor
Posted Nov 19, 2008 1:21pm
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Convoy duties again
Posted Nov 19, 2008 9:10am
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Must Americans beg for their jobs?
Posted Nov 18, 2008 4:07pm
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The enemy within
Posted Nov 18, 2008 2:59pm
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Obama advisers: Bush era war criminals will walk- NO ACCOUNTABILITY, Period !
Posted Nov 17, 2008 8:32pm
Comments (1)
This is why Dem leadership on the Hill is pathetic
Posted Nov 17, 2008 6:05pm
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Following Paulson's failed experiment which created a nuclear winter
Posted Nov 17, 2008 10:51am
Comments (0)
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It's a counter-productive tactic that diverts energy from the true campaign against the offenses of the civilian decision-makers who start wars. Instead this tactic seeks to criticize and punish the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who uphold the US Constitution and fulfill their duty.
There's been a well documented decades-long decline in population of officers and enlisted members of the US military identifying themselves as Democrats. I openly describe my 26-years of active and National Guard service as living in purgatory along side some of the most radical conservatives ever created.
The damages of boycotts like those in DC are two-fold: the military community has fewer liberal-progressive-Democratic members, and the Democratic Party is increasingly ignorant on military and defense matters. Little wonder that the "Foreign Policy" magazine and the Center for the New American Security (CNAS) poll of 3,400 senior members of the military shows politicians and civilian leaders with deplorably low approval ratings. This is self-inflected damage that does very little towards the described objective.
Boycotting and barring recruiters will have absolutely no effect on the policies of the current occupant of the White House and the US Defense mis-administration. But, it will virtually guarantee that the young-people of that school have a much higher probability of living their lives ignorant of US Defense Policy and the military. And, that the members of the military will never have the benefit of serving alongside a citizen-soldier holding liberal-progressive-Democratic ideals. So much for the legacy of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.