Students and Military Marketing

For the past 8 years I've been running a hip-hop production course that I bring to schools.
I put students into the mode of producers as opposed to consumers and teach them about the positivity of hip-hop culture and broaden there musical awareness in general.
More about that later.
Point being, in my course of working in the schools I have, at times, worked through other organizations. While working with one such organization, The Leadership Program, in 2005 I came across an interesting fact.
The program was funded by the 21st Century Grant, part of "no child left behind". The 21st Century Grant still provides many schools and Community Based Organizations (CBO's) with the funding they need to run after school and in school arts programming.
At the time we teachers, who were sent to schools in various capacities as representatives of The Leadership Program, where told by the organization that we needed to collect student ID numbers and submit them as part of our final attendence record. This deed was mandatory, we where told, as the Grant would not be renewed if we did not provide the ID numbers; reason supposedly being that these numbers were the only proof that students where actually attending classes and that the grant money was being put to good use. We were often reminded that, "we don't get paid without those ID numbers".
Something about this instinctively bothered me. The program put a lot of emphasis on this part of our job, clearly they where being pressured by the money source. It seemed slimy somehow.

To cut to the chase, I got an e-mail from moveon.org which was a real eye opener.
It's pasted above.
It basically is warning parents that "...A little known provision in the federal Leave No Child Behind law is forcing high schools all across the country to disclose the personal information of 30 million teenagers and young adults to a private marketing firm and the military. The pentagon announced just this summer it had been collecting and using the data--including such sensitive personal information as Social Security numbers, ethnicity, GPA, personal email addresses, height, weight, and event the cell phone numbers of our kids, without their parent's permission. They had been keeping this announcement secret for more than 2 years--a violation of federal privacy laws and the privacy of tens of millions of young americans."

They then provide a link to an "opt out" to stop the mega database to be used on your child.
There is a website called " LeaveMyChildAlone.org that can provide more information.

I ended up quiting my job and never turning in my student ID numbers. I work independently now and hope the programs I'm working in conjunction with are not giving students' info to the military. I had told a number of people about this over the years and was never able to find the original document. Well, here it is for all to see.
It's probably a good idea that we stay aware of these types of things.
We have to guard our right to privacy and be aware that the military industrial complex
is out for our children, no joke.
That's the scoop.
Welcome to the blog.

P