The federal No Child Left Behind Act made a requirement for high schools to provide military recruiters with access to campus, and forces schools to turn over students' names, addresses and phone numbers unless parents opt out. The military spends $3.5 billion annually on recruitment and enlisted more than 181,000 people for active-duty forces in the 2007 fiscal year and more than 138,000 for the reserves. Los Angeles County ranked third in the nation in raw numbers of Army recruits in 2007.
According to the LA Times, an activist group wants the same access to counter the military's message:
Troubled by military recruiting at Los Angeles high schools, activists are seeking equal access to students on campus to provide what they say is unvarnished information about the armed forces and information about nonmilitary careers.
The Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, a Southern California group of educators, volunteers and veterans dedicated to promoting nonviolent alternatives to military service, is taking the proposal to the Los Angeles Board of Education, saying it is vital that students have the truth about military enlistment.
Photo Credit: Gruntzooki
