The law does not explicitly prohibit schools from using an opt-in policy, but the government has, nonetheless, classified Fairport as being noncompliant and, therefore, at risk of losing federal funding. "We have a 10 percent special education population," Cala says, "and it's our most costly program. A good portion of that is federal money, and we'd be in real trouble if we lost that." Currently, Fairport has not had any of its funding revoked and according to a Defense Department spokesman, the Pentagon feels certain that Fairport's procedures will come into line with the law by the next school year. Which brings us back to the colonel on his way to visit Cala: If he cannot convince Cala to change his district's procedures, the law says that the New York governor will be contacted. Should that fail to produce results, Congress will be alerted.

Cala is not backing down and, in fact, he's optimistic that he will be able to convince the government that Fairport is not breaking the law -- an outcome that's not likely to transpire. Other school districts have, in the past, abandoned opt-in policies when faced with the threat of losing federal funds. In 2003, students at a Santa Cruz high school launched a campaign to adopt an opt-in policy, which was officially passed by the city's Board of Education that year. The San Francisco Unified School District followed suit.

But in July of 2003, the departments of education and defense sent a joint letter to the California state superintendent, explaining that the government was prepared to "withhold payments [of federal money], issue cease and desist orders, and recover funds" should the noncompliant school districts refuse to voluntarily comply with the law. "Once we got that letter," says Roqua Montez, a spokesman for the San Francisco school district, "we immediately began to reevaluate. We get around $38 million in federal funding and we couldn't risk that." Though they reverted to an opt-out policy, Santa Cruz and San Francisco remain committed to finding a way to protect student privacy under the terms of the law. Santa Cruz has enacted what it calls "an air-tight opt-out plus" policy, whereby the opt-out form is printed directly on the emergency medical card every student must complete before starting the school year.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., proposed the Student Privacy Protection Act, which would make opting in a legal option. "I want to ensure that students are willing recipients of the military's recruitment efforts," Honda says. "Let students and their families choose who they want soliciting them in the mail and on the phone during dinner." The bill is currently under consideration in a House committee.

The government's seeming unwillingness to compromise on this issue may be driven, at least in part, by the difficulty military recruiters are having in meeting recruiting goals. But that doesn't explain one of the more confounding aspects of this policy -- why a Republican administration is championing a measure that clearly goes against typically conservative values. "Many Republicans supported opt-in," says Bob Fitch of the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, who helped organize the city's original opt-in policy. "They were offended by marketing to our children in the schools, and clearly saw this as an issue of privacy."

But Army spokesman Doug Smith doesn't understand why educators and parents may be upset with the privacy invasion aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act. "I've been in Army recruiting for 25 years," he explains, "and I'm quite taken aback that people are having a negative response to this. We're not coercing people, we're just offering information about what the military provides. What's the problem with a student being exposed to information?"

As for Cala, he is prepared to settle this issue through the courts if he has to. "We'll do what we have to do, but we won't be intimidated," he says. "Every aspect of No Child Left Behind is based on the threat concept of if you don't follow what we say, we're going to take your money away. Someone has got to stand up to that."

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