The Shannon Family Website

...because our lives are so damn interesting

No Child Left Behind

The No Child Left Behind Act, which is summarized on Nochildleft.com as:

1. Place unrealistic demands on public schools.
2. Provide too little capacity building support and too little time to meet new demands.
3. Label schools as failures.
4. Permit wholesale transfers to a broad range of alternatives.
5. Mandate transfer of public funding to charters and alternatives.
6. Fund education of many previously private school children with public monies.
7. Privatize.
8. Privatize.
9. Privatize.

has another side "benefit". According to C.W. Nevius, the No Child Left Behind Act requires that all schools receiving federal funds (virtually all public schools) provide the phone numbers and addresses of high school students to military recruiters. That lead to this charming phone conversation between his son and a recruiter:

When the phone rang two weeks ago, our high school senior picked up.

"Heeeeeeey,'' said a jolly voice on the other end. "What's up?''

"Who is this?'' our son asked.

"It's Sgt. So-and-So from the Army,'' he said. "Just checking in to see how your senior year is going.''

"How did you get my home phone number?''

"Through the government,'' the sergeant said. "So, have you started your senior project yet?''

Things went downhill from there. The high school senior not only wanted to know how the Army got his number, he wanted to be taken off the list permanently. And the recruiter kept trying to get back to cheerful chat about the school year.

It did not go well. In fact, the recruiter ended up hanging up on his potential recruit. A little frustrated, apparently.

So, if you have a child of high school age, you can expect they'll (not the parent mind you) be receiving a phone call.

posted by Dave @ 7:39 AM