Sharon Shea-Keneally, principal of Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, was shocked when she received a letter in May from military recruiters demanding a list of all her students, including names, addresses, and phone numbers. The school invites recruiters to participate in career days and job fairs, but like most school districts, it keeps student information strictly confidential. “We don’t give out a list of names of our kids to anybody,” says Shea-Keneally, “not to colleges, churches, employers — nobody.”

But when Shea-Keneally insisted on an explanation, she was in for an even bigger surprise: The recruiters cited the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s sweeping new education law passed earlier this year. There, buried deep within the law’s 670 pages, is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student — or face a cutoff of all federal aid.

Mother Jones: No Child Unrecruited: 12/1/2002

Blackbox voting files lawsuit and serves papers in dramatic way. I can’t wait to see the video from this. Great work Blackbox voting!

I keep saying this, but a few people I know just don’t get it: if you want to make a difference, if something is bothering you and you want to see it change: you need to do it by donating and volunteering your time. Get involved. Step up. Rock on. Just don’t sit there and bitch.