 |
|
Recruiting Commander admits ASVAB is losing popularity in the nation's schools
Maj. Gen. Allen Batschelet
Maj.
Gen. Allen Batschelet, Commanding General for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command
at Fort Knox, Kentucky has admitted the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is losing its popularity in the
nation’s high schools.
“We’re seeing an
increasing trend with schools shutting us out from access or making access
pretty restricted,” Batschelet said. “Schools
are either choosing to not administer the ASVAB or withholding results from
recruiters.”
We appreciate the recruiting chief’s candor, but he is drawing the wrong conclusions to explain the test’s unpopularity. “There are unintended consequences, Batschelet explained, “because we think it is indirectly sending the signal that service to country in the military is not an honorable profession or something to which you should aspire.” Sorry, general. It’s the privacy! Parents feel they should make decisions regarding the release of their children’s personal information -- rather than your recruiting command!
=========================================================================================
We appreciate the recruiting chief’s candor, but he is drawing the wrong conclusions to explain the test’s unpopularity. “There are unintended consequences, Batschelet explained, “because we think it is indirectly sending the signal that service to country in the military is not an honorable profession or something to which you should aspire.” Sorry, general. It’s the privacy! Parents feel they should make decisions regarding the release of their children’s personal information -- rather than your recruiting command!
=========================================================================================
ASVAB in the news
Military Whitewash Campaign Kills Student Privacy Bill in Connecticut
A bill that would have protected the privacy of Connecticut's schoolchildren was defeated in May largely due to a misinformation campaign by the military recruiting command.
Read More 
"School officials encourage students to take the test under the belief that the purpose of the ASVAB is to assist students in exploring their various career options. We do not object to the administration of the ASVAB test; however, the distribution of the enormous amount of data collected on the ASVAB to military recruiters is a serious infringement on the privacy rights of those students." More ================== 
"By not selecting Option 8 when it administers the ASVAB, the School District is violating not only
statutory rights, it is also violating constitutional rights." L.A. Chapter, 2005. ================= Remember the 4th Amendment! 
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
An illegal search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society considers reasonable is infringed by a governmental employee or by an agent of the government. More 
Child Soldiers International is concerned by a range of American recruitment policies and practices that undermine the safeguards contained in article 3.3 of OPAC, in particular with regards to the voluntary nature of underage recruitment, the right to privacy of children and the requirement of prior consent of parents (or legal guardians). Child Soldiers International is also concerned by the extensive access to schools and students’ information by the US military, which suggests that the US government is pursuing the active recruitment of under-18s.
See discussion beginning on Page 10. More |
Please
sign this White House petition
calling on the Pentagon to be more transparent in the way it collects student information from American schools. Dear President Obama, We call on the Department of Defense to sign the Student Privacy Pledge. In January, 2015 President Obama endorsed the Student Privacy Pledge, calling on companies to make a firm commitment to using student data only for educational purposes. Signers of the Student Privacy Pledge have committed to use data only for authorized education purposes; to enforce strict limits on data retention; and to not behaviorally target advertising to students. Although 118 companies in the business of providing services to students in America’s classrooms have signed the Pledge, the Department of Defense (DoD) is noticeably absent. The DoD operates several dozen programs in public and private school classrooms across the country, many that collect information on youth for recruiting purposes. The DoD must join these honorable companies in signing the Pledge. Background Recruiting & Testing in Parochial Schools
Summer is
the season for high school football practice. Two years ago, the players at
Central Catholic High School in Portland, Ore., got a different kind of coaching.
For the first time, U.S. Army recruiters volunteered to run Central Catholics’
Rams through their strength and conditioning paces—helping them prepare for the
annual “Holy War” match-up against arch-rival Jesuit High School.
According to an article in the Recruiter Journal (the monthly magazine for Army recruiting), the Army “footprint” for the big game included a Humvee parked outside the stadium, and a pre-kickoff event in which local recruiters placed “unit patch decals from various Army divisions” onto players’ helmets. “Not once at practice did we talk about the Army,” said one of the recruiters. “It wasn’t about the Army, it was about how we can integrate ourselves into the community in a way the community will accept us and not feel like we are a threat.” In 2014, one of Central Catholic’s standout players was selected to participate in the annual U.S. Army All-American Bowl, a national football showcase which has been described as both the “crown jewel” in Army marketing strategy and a “springboard to bolster recruiting efforts.” Each year, a different coach is selected to lead the squad of the nation’s top high school players, and in 2013 the squad was led by a man who by then was quite well known in Army recruiting circles: Central Catholic’s football coach, Steve Pyne. In recent years, the Pentagon’s military recruiting capabilities have experienced a quantum leap—including unprecedented access to Christian schools. More New Hampshire Passes
|
President Obama to Introduce Student Digital Privacy Act
Legislation unlikely to cover DoD in the schools During the last year or so about half of the states have enacted legislation aimed at protecting student privacy. Meanwhile, President Obama has called for a Student Digital Privacy Act saying “data collected on students in the classroom should only be used for educational purposes — to teach our children, not to market to our children.” Most of the new laws and the president’s proposal have omitted the most egregious violation of student privacy in the nation. It is the Department of Defense’s administration of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to more than 650,000 children in 12,000 high schools and the retention of demographic information, social security numbers, and 3 hours of test results for recruiting purposes without parental consent. More We’d like to see President Obama’s legislation include tighter reins on the Pentagon’s data collection in the nation’s schools. 
State-by-State Snapshot
of ASVAB Testing This spreadsheet, with statistics from all 50 states and territories, was compiled using data released by the Freedom of Information Office of the Secretary of Defense in December of 2013. DOWNLOAD STATE ASVAB DATA
Click below to access your state’s ASVAB statistics. The database includes the name and location of 11,700 schools administering the test, along with the most current test date, the total of those who took the test, a breakdown by grade, and the release option chosen. Click Here to access your state’s ASVAB data. ================ 
The database was released after a protracted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. It is full of inaccuracies, omissions, and contradictions.
Read more 
The American Public Health Association calls for cessation of ASVAB testing for recruiting purposes.
Nothing in the Recruiter's manual advises recruiters to reveal the risks their prospects face, neither the physical hazards on the battlefield nor the psychological trauma and its aftereffects." More U.N. calls on US to stop mandatory military testing 
In early 2013 The UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the Obama Administration to "Ensure that schools, parents and pupils are made aware of the voluntary nature of the ASVAB before consenting to the participation into it." See the Concluding observations on the Second Report of the United States of America, adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its sixty-second session (14 January–5 2013) regarding the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict See Concluding Observations IV 21 (c)
We thought it was pretty big news so we sent out press releases to several hundred mainstream American publications and no one picked it up. In short, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child feels the US is violating its international treaty obligations in the way it uses the ASVAB to recruit American youth without parent knowledge or consent. It's disgusting. |
