Standardized tests have long been the scourge of high school students’ academic careers. New York State students take the dreaded Regents exams, California students take the CSTs, and Texas students take the TAKS. Those preparing to apply to college ready themselves for the PSATs and SATs. Yet, some high school students, voluntarily or not, take an exam that does not so much test their general knowledge or ability to excel in a university setting as whether they have what it takes to fight U.S. wars.
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is a ubiquitous examination administered in many of the nation’s public high schools by the U.S. military. It is the entrance test for the military of which only four parts—arithmetic reasoning, word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, and mathematics knowledge—are used to calculate a person’s Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) score, according to www.military.com/ ASVAB. Ultimately, the test determines whether the student is eligible to enlist in any branch of the U.S. armed forces.
The ASVAB is offered for free and thus is a staple of many public high schools’ testing environments. However, many high school students who take the test (and their parents) never have a clue that it is a military exam and that their personal information, and their test scores, can be sent to the military for recruitment purposes. This has caused many activists and concerned members of school communities to work to ensure that students, parents, and educators know what the test is and how they can opt out of taking the test and/or having their information given to the military.
The ASVAB allows a few different types of reporting options for student scores and their personal information, but it is incumbent on the school to choose an option. By default, all scores and information get sent to the military, but schools can choose Option 8 when allowing the test to be administered. This option means the school has decided that no information will be sent to the military, but that any individual student can decide to have that information sent if he or she wishes.
Too often, however, school administrators don’t realize that there are any reporting options. And, of course, there are schools that are more concerned with supporting the war effort than protecting students’ privacy rights. Some “patriotic” principals will ultimately decide not to choose Option 8. Yet, in what may seem like a rare act of logic and reason by a governmental body, the State of Maryland has enacted legislation that protects the privacy of students. As of April 13, 2010, all public schools in Maryland are mandated to choose Option 8. This legislation, entitled HB 176/SB 778, ensures that student privacy is respected and allows students and their parents to share the information with the military if they are interested in enlisting.
Pat Elder, a member of the Maryland Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, has been working on grassroots organizing around this issue for a number of years and has helped lead the effort in Maryland. His research on the ASVAB revealed that most school and state officials were unaware of the options schools have in protecting students’ privacy. The new law is a comprehensive way to ensure that the schools in Maryland are protecting their constituents’ privacy. It is in line with other measures schools take to protect student privacy, such as providing students and parents with information about their right to “opt out” of having their data sent to military recruiters (part of the Military Recruiter provision of the No Child Left Behind Act). Maryland is the first and only state to have closed this gap, and many activists are looking to this victory as a model for grassroots organizing efforts in their own states.
“Career Exploration”
The test, which costs the Department of Defense roughly $10 million a year to manage, is also often referred to as the ASVAB Career Exploration Program. A visit to the ASVAB program website shows how the Department of Defense seeks to disguise the fact that the test is designed for military recruitment and assessment purposes. Nowhere is the ASVAB acronym spelled out—that would identify the exam as being used by the armed forces. Instead, it is referred to as an aptitude test. There are a few references to the military having developed the test, but the website barely discusses how the military currently uses it.
Depending on how a school is contacted, the test can be administered by either military recruiters or civilian personnel employed with the ASVAB Career Exploration Program. In either case, those making the decision to have the test administered are very likely unaware that they could choose how information on the test is released.
Of course, there are many who see the Maryland law as a challenge. Army recruiters have already expressed their displeasure with the law, saying that its purpose is to disrupt efforts to “build, support, or sustain the military.” This statement reveals how important the test is to the military as opposed to assessing youth aptitudes and potential career tracks. While these concerns did not keep Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley from signing the bill, folks around the country seeking to work on this at the local or state level should pay attention to the rhetoric being used to express dissatisfaction. The Department of Defense is expected to work to reverse this law or at least convince other state governments to not enact similar legislation.
To learn more about the ASVAB test and activist responses to it, visit www.nnomy.org and click on the ASVAB link. There is also a database at www.philly.com/inquirer/multimedia/26249194.html obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer that shows how many schools gave the ASVAB in 2006–07 and tells how many students took the test, which schools make the test mandatory (even though it is a voluntary test), and whether the results are given to the military.
