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Maryland First State to Bar Schools Releasing Tests to Military
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - A first-of-its-kind law bars public high schools in Maryland from automatically sending student scores on a widely used military aptitude test to recruiters, a practice that critics say was giving the armed forces backdoor access to young people without their parents' consent.
Al Goldis / AP Photo
Toria Latnie is shown Wednesday, May 12, 2010, outside her home in Lansing, Mich. Latnie said a counselor at her son's Florida charter high school told seniors in late 2008 that a military aptitude test was a requirement for graduation. She researched the exam online and refused to allow her son to take the test. (AP)
School districts around the country have the
choice of whether to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude
Battery exam, and ones that offer it typically pass the scores and
students' contact information directly to the military. Topics on the
test range from math and reading to knowledge of electronics and
automobiles.
The Maryland law, the first in the nation after similar California legislation was vetoed, was signed last month and bars schools from automatically releasing the information to military recruiters. Instead, students, and their parents if they are under 18, will have to decide whether to give the information to the military. The law takes effect in July. One other state, Hawaii, has a similar policy for its schools, but not a law.
Roughly 650,000 U.S. high school students took the exam in the 2008-2009 school year, and the Department of Defense says scores for 92 percent of them were automatically sent to military recruiters. In the fiscal year that ended in September, 7.6 percent of those who enlisted in the military used scores from the test as part of their applications.
Nancy Grasmick, Maryland Superintendent of Schools, said in a letter to lawmakers that the test and score analysis are "free services that public schools often utilize as part of their ongoing career development and exploration programs." Grasmick took no position on the legislation in her letter and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said the data is used both to screen students' enlistment eligibility and to determine their interests and skills for nonmilitary careers. Asked about criticism that the military is going around parents, Lainez said in an e-mail that "parents and other influencers are in the best position to help advise students of various career opportunities, and the pros and cons associated with each of the choices."
Members of the Maryland Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, which pushed for the legislation, argued the military isn't upfront about the test's real purpose. Coalition member and high school teacher Pat Elder said he became involved in the issue after volunteering on a phone hot line for troubled soldiers. Many told him they hadn't considered the military until a recruiter who'd seen their scores contacted them.
"I've spoken to 'C' or 'D' students who are called by a recruiter and told 'Dude, you're really good at this kind of stuff,' and that's what it takes for them to join," said Elder, who teaches at the Muslim Community School in Potomac, Md. "There is an insidious, psychological element to these tests."
While Maryland is the first state to pass a law prohibiting the automatic release of scores to military recruiters, some individual school districts elsewhere, including the Los Angeles school system, have policies to the same effect. Hawaii's Department of Education implemented its statewide policy last year. Four Maryland counties - Howard, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's - also blocked the direct release of scores to recruiters before the state law was passed.
State legislators in California passed a similar measure in 2008, but it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
School districts in Maryland have had different policies for when and how they administer the roughly 3.5 hour multiple-choice exam. Some school districts, like rural Allegany County, only offer the test to students at a technical high school, while individual schools in the Baltimore City district can choose whether to administer the exam.
Maryland state senator Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, said he sponsored the bill partly because school districts' approaches varied. He said constituents also told him they didn't think local school districts knew their options.
"They thought they had to turn over information to recruiters," Raskin said.
Some argued that the measure was antimilitary. Baltimore County Republican Sen. Andy Harris said the legislation gives students the impression that they should be skeptical of military careers.
"I think sending any message while we're at war overseas that the military in any way is not an honorable profession is the wrong message to send," Harris said.
Del. Sheila Hixson, D-Montgomery, sponsored the bill in the House, bristled at that argument.
"For me, it wasn't the military piece, it was the parental permission," Hixson said. "Parents didn't know what was going on and children didn't realize what was going on."
Toria Latnie, who now lives in Michigan, said a counselor at her son's Florida charter high school told seniors in late 2008 that the military aptitude test was a requirement for graduation. Latnie researched the exam online and refused to allow her son to take the test.
"I was angry, very angry," said Latnie, a mother of five. "I felt lied to, deceived, like people were trying to go behind my back and give my child's private information to the military."
On the Net:- Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery: http://www.asvabprogram.com
- National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy: http://www.asvabtest.org
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28 Comments so far
Show AllI was born in 1942. I included that information in answering an ad for information on joining the military.
I get information, updates, propaganda every day via email.
So, boot camp shouldn't be a problem.
OohRah!!
Kathleen Miller: "Some argued that the measure was antimilitary. Baltimore County Republican Sen. Andy Harris said the legislation gives students the impression that they should be skeptical of military careers."
As if students shouldn't "be skeptical of military careers."
Hey Sen. Harris, when the US Military grabs school kids out of their beds in the middle of the night in Afghanistan, binds their hands behind their backs and then executes them, American high school students should be much more than skeptical of military carrers. They should be anti-military!
The Afghan kids were accidentally killed. By mistake, they walked into the line of fire for the pregnant girls our soldiers were aiming at.
Students getting free education from the government should still have the option to opt out of taking the military aptitude test. If they do take it, there should be an up front declaration on the cover page that announces that the results will be shared with the recruiters. Of course there should be mandatory national service for all 18-22 year olds guided by a national aptitude test, for the good of all.
[Students getting free education from the government]
Ummm, they'll pay for that education for the rest of their lives thru property taxes which are levied to pay for public education. Just like you're still paying for the time when you went thru k-12 education by property taxes.
Mandatory service for all 18-22 year olds sounds like a nice idea, until you realize that the rich will still get their kids out of it. The military cull of the population would not be good for the politicians who actually introduced the idea. I'm also sure that a good number of the draftees would find other ways of gumming up the works, from being too fat to serve (I suppose they could go to a fat camp for three years to get rid of the baby fat packed on by the processed food industry), to bringing their weed to the recruiting office and smoking a fatty before they're supposed to be inducted.
On edit; Why do you want to single out the youth for this 'national service' idea anyhow? Are you now so old that you now believe that youth is something for which the young should be punished for being? I don't understand that idea. I don't think that it is right to force the young into a brainwashing experience like the armed services (I noticed you didn't say anything about other options...) especially as there is a very good chance that they would return to the country broken in body or soul.
Mandatory Service is a really bad, oppressive statist idea that is a favorite in some "liberal" circles.
You could achieve a similar effect with massive youth jobs programs, and the oppressive slavery aspect of mandatory service is avoided.
"Of course there should be mandatory national service for all 18-22 year olds guided by a national aptitude test, for the good of all."
Are you crazy? Mandatory service? If we did something nuts like that, the oligarch's children might be put at risk. Leave military service where it belongs: for black, brown, and poor white kids. There is no need to risk the safety of upper class white kids when they should be in college learning how to extract value from their future employees (that would be the ones who survive their tour of duty).
When you were between the ages of 18 and 22 what slave labor services did you provide to the federal government?
Senator Andy Harris is part of the problem, not part of the solution. He should be ashamed of himself, but clearly someone who makes this sort of public statement hasn't the wit, intelligence or basic human decency to feel shame.
Perhaps, if he is a human being and not another corporatized, hyper-militarized delusional clown who believes that the true purpose of life in America is to go to war, make money off war and advance the bullshit obscenity of 'American exceptionalism', he should be required to look at the Wikileaks video 'Collateral Murder', on the wanton, video-game-style massacre of journalists and children in what Mr. Harris evidently regards as a worthwhile, justified overseas war and required to rethink this 'honourable profession' horseshit.
The purpose, the raison d'etre of the American military has far less to do with defense than it does with the forcing of a hyper-capitalist, hyper-'Christian' (which is no more Christian than the left cheek of my arse), hyper-masculinized, imperial hegemony which WILL ultimately destroy the United States. If you truly think, Mr Harris, as opposed to just deceitfully propagandize, that the current overseas wars of the United States are about defending the United States from terrorism, then, as I said, you are a part of the problem, and you need your brainwashed head examined. Terrorism and 'security', executed at home and abroad, are the real products of American industry now.
Shame on you for weighing in with your filthy opinion that it is somehow wrong to be anti-military, or that anyone should feel guilty for opposing the youth of America anymore being hauled, especially by such deceitful means as highlighted in this article, into these crimes against humanity. If you have the balls to do anything at all for your country, Mr Harris, put your efforts into reducing military spending and fixing domestic infrastructure, health care and childhood nutrition, among the myriad other ills. Otherwise, fuck off.
Yes, Mr Harris, students and everyone else should not only be skeptical of military careers, they should start being aggressively anti-military, because despite the 'political untouchable-ness' of the issue of the military and the spending thereof, the military paradigm underpinning the Meaning Of American Life is false, destructive and robbing the American people of a better life. But, of course, given how ingrained the soldier mentality is in America, and how desperately insecure and fundamentally anti-human a country has to be to nail all of its identity to the cross of militarism, it is clear that to reject and dismantle the military to the point at which only the barest minimum is maintained for extreme necessities of defense would mean the dismantlingh of America as it is presently known and constituted.
American military might and spending should be a source of the profoundest shame, but that is unlikely to come about in this millennium, assuming America survives the millennium. And one should hope that in its present configuration it will not, if what survives is more of the same.
It is another rank abuse of children, be they adolescents and quickly moving toward choice of careers or not, to allow any policy or action of any kind which funnels them toward or psychologically kidnaps them into the military.
The country these children grow up in rots from within because of the bastardization of human, humane and feminine values, and the impoverishment of all the practical matters of life with integrity, such as health care, basic goddamn nutrition and the promotion of people over profits, to say nothing of the still-rampant hatred and assault on women and anything remotely resembling a feminine value.
And this rot is wrought overwhelmingly by males, largely white, in suits, who believe they are entitled to run the world, and have the appalling gall to claim it all in the name of 'God', 'Jesus Christ', and 'Christianity'.
Well, "if [they] can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?"
-Linda Ellerbee, jounalist
Hey Barry, I live in California. Both my US Senators are women. One is fairly progressive (Boxer), the other is a corrupt zionist schill and war monger (Feinstein).
I understand what you are saying about the hyper masculine military, but women and men come in all varieties, some wonderful human beings and some are ethically challenged to say the least.
To say that our society hates and assaults anything remotely resembling a feminine valus is hyperbolic over-generalization. The Pentagon and US society are not one and the same, at least not yet.
Anyway, score one for the side of peace and justice! Go Maryland!
This is a very weak response to a really powerful statement.
Why did you write such cavilling drivel? We all deserve an answer.
This is an honourable statement. I had begun to think US citizens were incapable of such insight.
In support:
'-----robbing the American people of a better life': it is not just American people that US citizens are robbing. US citizens are robbing humanity.
Consequently, US citizens are going to have to pay the price and citizens such as Barry Greene are the future. This is inevitable. Harris is on the run and the longer he runs the worse the consequences.
In fairness to Senator Andy Harris, he's not worried about HIS kids going into the military. Getting killed in the military is a privilege that's reserved for the children of the fools who vote for him.
>>
American military might and spending should be a source of the profoundest shame, but that is unlikely to come about in this millennium, assuming America survives the millennium. And one should hope that in its present configuration it will not, if what survives is more of the same.
<<
It is a source of profound shame for me, I assure you, and for many other people that I know.
Barry, really appreciate your passion and wisdom.
"I think sending any message while we're at war overseas that the military in any way is not an honorable profession is the wrong message to send,"
Sending message...
Invading another country is NOT honorable.
If the military is a so-called "profession", then it's not an honorable one. Like a "career politician" is also dishonorable.
Dismantle the Pentagon and arrest the saboteurs of peace. Now that's an honorable profession.
Message received?
Say NO to las puertas de muerte- doors of DEATH ...they should NOT be allowed to even enter schools for they are trained to deceive and brainwash young minds to kill for amerikan imperialism !
tioche, Mexico
de acuerdo.
Yeaaaaaaa! I hope other states follow this example. The test has been given under the pretense that it is a "career counseling" tool. The students are not told the destination of their personal data.
The next intrusion into personal privacy that needs to be changed: Part of the "No Child Left Behind" act includes a provision that all schools receiving federal money are obligated to provide students' personal information to the recruiters. This includes name, address, and contact information, and may in clude hobbies, grades, and other tidbits that recruiters can use to market their death wares to the unsuspecting students. Students hqve the option to "opt out" of this - but most don't understand what is going on. Parents should be appalled!
Three cheers for Maryland!
Why are these tests not sent to medical,dental, woodworking, plumbing, garbage collecting, tree trimming schools? Why would be military be priviledged to free secret access to information concerning our children?
I think there is just one - POWER and that great big military budget.
We need an unrescindable law that says any politician who makes a public statement in support of military adventurism (i.e. undeclared war, backdoor drafts, recruitment, etc) is automatically inducted for the duration of the adventure at the lowest enlisted grade in some combat-zone role (e.g. truck driver if not able enough to be infantry).
Any pro-adventurism statement brings the MPs to your elbow within 24 hours to escort you to the intake point for your new role. No reassignment, no promotion, no favoritism.
Better to send their kids. After all, they want to send yours.
I thought about that, but the potential irony of forcibly inducting an anti-war activist kid to punish their hawk-adventurist parent was just too much for me. At least if we take the parent, we know we've got the malefactor.
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"I've spoken to 'C' or 'D' students who are called by a recruiter and told 'Dude, you're really good at this kind of stuff,' and that's what it takes for them to join," said Elder, who teaches at the Muslim Community School in Potomac, Md. "There is an insidious, psychological element to these tests."
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Our best and brightest.
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"I think sending any message while we're at war overseas that the military in any way is not an honorable profession is the wrong message to send," Harris said.
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Training (brainwashing) our best and brightest 'C' and 'D' students to murder innocent people on the other side of the world in order to pave the way for oil wells and pipelines certainly is one of the most honorable endeavors I can think of.