The NYT hits the recruitment problem:
Some of that opportunity was provoked by the very law that was supposed to make it easier for recruiters to reach students more directly. No Child Left Behind, which was passed by Congress in 2001, requires schools to turn over students’ home phone numbers and addresses unless parents opt out. That is often the spark that ignites parental resistance.
Recruiters, in interviews over the past six months, said that opposition can be fierce. Three years ago, perhaps 1 or 2 of 10 parents would hang up immediately on a cold call to a potential recruit’s home, said a recruiter in New York who, like most others interviewed, insisted on anonymity to protect his career. “Now,” he said, “in the past year or two, people hang up all the time.”
That sounds like a little Law of Unintended Consequences action happening there. How ironic… and it just couldn’t happen to a more appropriate administration. And what a surprise, that helpful Federal government is protecting the children by giving out their telephone numbers and home addresses to the military.
Of course, the government military has a perfect right to make its pitch for voluntary service in the government schools. It’s just bitterly amusing that that’s the one thing that parents find objectionable.