Beginning last year, as spelled out in a little-known provision of the NCLB Act and also the National Defense Authorization Act for 2002, schools are required to give so-called directory information (name, address, phone number) to military recruiters upon request or face the loss of some federal education funds.

With the situation in Iraq, recruiters obviously face a challenge filling an all-volunteer military, so they have to be more aggressive. And now the president and Congress have made it a little easier.

Not only that. Schools also must provide recruiters with access to high school students. Who knows what that means, but let's hope we're just talking about a table on career day.

Scott Rabeler, principal at Oneonta High School, said the school has always been careful about giving out student data, though in the past it often voluntarily cooperated with recruiters' requests for information.

Under the new mandate, he said military personnel call from Albany to request (though the school can't realistically say no) the student information and a local recruiter picks up the lists at the school.

What if the Oneonta school district refused to comply with the new dictates?

Thomas Austin, business administrator, said the district gets between $1 million and $1.5 million annually from the federal government. And that figure was closer to $3 million just a couple of years ago, he said.

Not complying obviously would cost the district that money, which represents about 10 percent of its tax levy.

For students, the new law means phone calls from local military recruiters. For some that's OK, because the military services provide a way for students not interested in college to get an education and learn technical skills.

Sgt. Wayne Berry of the U.S. Army recruiting office in Oneonta said he tries to contact all the students on the lists he gets from area schools, but said many are hard to reach.

I didn't always agree with recruiters' tactics, however. A few years ago a recruiter, who called back after I made it clear he shouldn't, told my daughter not to tell her father he had called, especially after she had apparently informed him how I felt about war and the military.

That was a few years back. This week, Berry said he usually honors requests from parents to not call their children back.

He agreed that Oneonta has been cooperative over the years, and cited only Delaware Academy and Andes as schools that have not wanted to give names to recruiters.

But the new law about recruiters sounds so harmless, some may say, why make a big deal out of it? Well, if it were so innocent, why are schools being forced to turn over student names under threat of financial loss?

And it's anything but harmless now that the military is bogged down in a deadly, open-ended occupation of Iraq, following the invasion earlier this year. More than 300 troops have been killed. That creates a whole new set of circumstances for young people who might be considering spending time in the military after high school.

There is, however, a way out for students and parents who do not want their information turned over to recruiters — or anyone else.

Students or parents can request that data not be released without their written consent. In fact, thanks to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, schools are required to notify parents of that option and to comply with such a request.

In Oneonta, that notification was in the form of a legal notice published in this newspaper just before the school year began. Legal notices are published in small, 8-point type at the beginning of the classified ads pages. The chances that students or parents saw and read the notice are slim.

The legal notice stated in part: "If you do not want Oneonta City School District to disclose directory information from your child's education records without your prior written consent, you must notify the District in writing by September 30, 2003."

Now, I'm sure parents aren't going to be flooding the school district during the next few days with their requests to withhold their children's data. In fact, Rabeler and Austin said the school ordinarily gets only a few such requests a year.

But it is important for parents to be aware of the new laws that force schools to turn over student information to recruiters, and know that they can prevent such disclosure if they wish.

Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at (607) 432-1000, ext. 217, or cary@thedailystar.com.