September 29, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Rage against the 'machine'

by Alexandria Rocha

The Peninsula Raging Grannies protested at the local book signings of former first lady Barbara Bush and former U.S. secretary of state Madeline Albright.

The Grannies have stood up for labor rights and the environment. They've caused an uproar at a recent Stanford University graduation ceremony, during a speech given by Condoleeza Rice.

The Grannies, known for their flashy garb and wild song and dance routines, are about to rage again, this time at Paly's Career Day Oct. 13. Their purpose that day is to educate kids on options other than the military, whose recruiters will also have a booth at the event. What they ultimately hope to do is get military recruiters off local high school campuses.

"Even if one recruiter comes on Paly once a month, that's too much for us," said member Ruth Robertson.

At the heart of the group's objections is a law buried in the 1,180-page No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 that gives military recruiters access to the names, phone numbers and addresses of high school juniors and seniors. If schools fail to provide the names, federal funding could be withheld.

It has sarcastically been called "no child left unrecruited" and "no child left alive."

In a city where the local school district's Board of Education has adopted a lengthy student privacy policy, the new open access law and on-campus military recruitment has irked more people in the educational community than just the Raging Grannies.

"I find (this law) to be very upsetting," said Christine Shambora, the PTA representative for Paly. "As a school district we've had to go to extraordinary lengths to protect our students' privacy, and then the government turns around and is demanding information that in any other situation would be seen as a violation.

"I think it's very hypocritical," added Shambora, whose son is a Paly sophomore this year.

Barbara Spreng, PTA president of the local chapter, was unaware of the military's monthly visits to the high school campuses. She said it's likely other parents would object to the military's presence, as well -- if they knew about it.

The California Department of Education has required high schools to provide military recruiters with the delicate information for decades, but there were never any sanctions for non-compliance.

"The fact that (high schools) didn't (supply the information) was a violation of the law, but the department didn't do anything about it," said Robert Cervantes, with the state department of education.

Now, schools that receive federal funding could lose that money if the names and contacts are not provided.

About $650,000 would be at stake if the Palo Alto Unified School District decided not to participate. Those funds, said Associated Superintendent Cynthia Pino, are given to schools based on the number of students who receive free or reduced lunches, as well as specific programs for English language learners and to ensure safe and drug-free schools, among others.

In Palo Alto, and a number of schools across the state, parents have a way to protect their student's information from the military.

In the next few weeks, parents of upperclassmen at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools will receive a form in the mail with an option to bar their child's name from any recruitment list. The exemption is not automatic, and unless parents send the form back, the information will be released.

In the past two years, parents have withheld the names of nearly half the school's juniors and seniors. At Gunn, about a quarter of the juniors' and seniors' names were withheld.

"That's higher then we had hoped for. We're pleased to hear that," said Robertson, a raging granny.

Since this is the third year the military is allowed to look at student directory information, the Raging Grannies will step up their efforts to counter the open access.

The group, operating under the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, will host a booth at Paly's upcoming career day (held at noon Oct. 13), offering alternatives to military service.

The group, however, admits that military recruiting is not as popular in Palo Alto as it may be in other areas.

"We're in Palo Alto, and the recruiters are not as hot and heavy here than in low-income areas," said Raging Granny Ruth Robertson.

Sgt. 1st Class Bolivar Toro said three students "at the most" have enrolled in the U.S. Army from both Paly and Gunn over the past two years.

"The Army is not the first thing on a lot of people's minds here," said Toro, who works out of the U.S. Army's Sunnyvale recruiting office, which serves Paly and Gunn.

The college bound numbers speak for themselves. According to the school district, about 95 percent of Paly and Gunn alumni head to some sort of higher education institution each year.

Recruiters from the four main branches of the military are on Paly and Gunn campuses about once a month. Staff Sgt. Aaron Benett of the U.S. Air Force Academy said recruiters wait for students to come up to them before offering information. "Naturally, we don't want to impose. It's all about options," Benett said. "If the kids want to go to college, of course we encourage that, just as long as they're not working at McDonald's or sitting at home doing nothing."

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