ASVAB—TESTING STUDENT PROTECTIONS

 WHEREAS, the federal Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is given without identification as a military recruitment tool to approximately 600,000 students in two-thirds of the high schools across the nation; and

WHEREAS, the ASVAB was created by the Department of Defense (DOD) to evaluate an individual’s eligibility for military enlistment and is designed to provide recruiters with a source of prequalified leads but is promoted for career exploration; and

WHEREAS, many students and parents believe they are already protected from having their private information shared with military recruiters via the Opt Out option defined in Section 9528 of NCLB; and

WHEREAS, the ASVAB allows the military recruiters to circumvent Section 9528; and

WHEREAS, individual schools have the option of withholding private student information from military recruiters by selecting Option 8, an internal designation the military uses, although statistics from the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command indicate that only 5.7 percent did so in fiscal year 2007; and

WHEREAS, Option 8 has become the blanket policy in several large school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and two districts in Maryland, that allows schools and students to receive and use test results for guidance purposes, and individual students can choose to release their scores to military recruiters; and

WHEREAS, unwanted military recruitment that often includes high-pressure tactics should not be consequential to the taking of any assessment provided in public schools:

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers locals and members encourage and promote all ASVAB testing schools to use Option 8 to protect student privacy and publicize the use of Option 8 in all ASVAB testing scenarios; and

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers use its media publications to inform members of this resolution.