The most worrisome of Barack Obama’s proposals is his goal of bringing most charities under the federal umbrella in part by inducing all middle and high school children to do 50 hours of community service every year.
The details are on his campaign website and in his speeches calling Americans to service.
By requiring almost all public middle schoolers, starting at the age of 10 or 11, to join his new cadres of community service workers and become part of his “civilian national security force,” Barack Obama shows himself to be out of touch with American traditions of individual volunteerism.
There is nothing wrong with a family allowing a child to volunteer at a young age: in the summer when I was 11, I spent several nights a week working for free at a concession stand in a little league baseball park. My parents were comfortable with this community service because at all times I was under the supervision of my mother’s best friend. Parents then and parents today would like to choose whether their 11-year old child takes on even a part time job, and they would like to choose the job and judge for themselves whether the working conditions are suitable.
With his myriad proposals for new "Corps" and his proposal for universal service for all school children, Obama is trying to bring the charitable activities of 50 to 100 million people –- about half of them children –- under state control. That our government is even capable of running a service program on a scale never before attempted is a matter of faith, not evidence.
Steven Malanga of City Journal has an article that deals more with Barack Obama’s past than his proposals for the future.
Community organizing’s roots stretch back to the 1930s and Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation and author of Rules for Radicals. But it wasn’t until President Lyndon Johnson’s ambitious plan to end poverty through massive federal spending that the Alinsky model—grassroots organizing, neighborhood by neighborhood—really took off. Starting in the mid-1960s, the federal government directed billions of dollars to neighborhood groups, convinced that they knew better than Washington what their communities needed. The federal funds, eventually supplemented by state and local tax dollars, helped create a universe of government-funded community groups running everything from job-training programs to voter-registration drives—far beyond anything Alinsky could have imagined. Some 3,000 local social-services groups were soon receiving government funding in New York City alone. Many were new, but the money also helped turn traditional charities that had operated on private donations into government contractors.
Those who led these social-services groups became advocates, unsurprisingly, for government-funded solutions to social problems. To defend and expand their turf, organizers began heading into the political arena, wielding the power they had accumulated in neighborhoods to build a base of supporters. In New York, operators of huge social-services groups like Pedro Espada in the Bronx and Albert Vann in Brooklyn won election to state and federal posts after heading up large, powerful nonprofits. By the late 1980s, nearly 20 percent of New York City Council members were products of the government-funded nonprofit sector, and they were among the most strident advocates for higher taxes and more government spending. In other cities, too, from Chicago to Cleveland to Los Angeles, the road to electoral success increasingly ran through the government-funded social-services sector. Spending directed to these groups boomed through both Republican and Democratic administrations. “The non-profit service sector has never been richer, more powerful,”former welfare recipient Theresa Funiciello wrote in her 1993 book Tyranny of Kindness. “Except to the poor, poverty is a mega-business.”
Obama began his organizing life in the mid-1980s in a community group whose progress mirrored that of the rest of the industry: the Developing Communities Project, formed on Chicago’s South Side as a “faith-based grassroots organization organizing and advocating for social change.” Though founded with resources from a coalition of churches, over time the DCP evolved, like many left-leaning religious organizations, into a government contractor essentially subsisting on tax money—with nearly 80 percent of its revenues deriving from public contracts and grants.
As a young college graduate immersed in the world of tax-bankrolled activism, Obama adopted the big-government ethos that prevailed among neighborhood organizers who viewed attempts to reform poverty programs as attacks on the poor. Speaking to an alternative weekly on the eve of his 1995 run for state senate, Obama said . . . that “these are mean, cruel times . . . .” He derided the “old individualistic bootstrap myth” of American achievement that conservatives were touting. Self-help strategies “have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda,” he wrote in a chapter that he contributed to a 1990 book, After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. (He also depicted leftist community organizing as a harder task than similar efforts by the Christian Right, telling a reporter in 1995 that “it’s always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness and false nostalgia.”)
Related Posts (on one page):
- Obama's New "Corps" And Other Service Programs.
- Obama’s College Service Programs.
- Involuntary Associations and National Service.--
- Community Service for all Middle and High School Children.--
Also, it is unclear yet how much better John McCain is on service; he will be speaking at Service Nation in a couple weeks. I expect his position to be clearer then. He certainly has a strong statist streak as well, though I doubt that he will propose anything quite as sweeping as Obama's plan.
This is not a fair representation of the proposal, and I'd imagine you know that.
I'm interested to know if you are opposed to service learning in general, and whether you dispute the studies which have shown that students who participate in such programs are more likely to graduate, earn better grades, and engage in community service after graduation?
The last time this issue was discussed on this site, some of the comments revealed concern that service learning is just a mask for ideologically driven forced labor. What's the evidence for this? I've never found anything like that to be true.
It would be a wonderful thing for the country if we could do a better job of employing the talents of people who want to give back and aren't sure where to begin. It would also be a wonderful thing if more students learned the value of community service and made it a habit. Where is the downside?
2. The author of this essay is out of touch with the reality of the state of the nation if he believes that young parents today are at all concerned with teaching their children about the value of volunteering.
3. There are plenty of countries that require this type of service and they still enjoy civil liberties.
Please don't make the mistake of discounting the enormous lack of patriotism and civil engagement among young people today. A program that requires positive action is no different from one that requires school attendance. Activism for young people is just another form of education!
Kids are remarkably good at detecting hypocrisy and nonsense. They will understand that the adults around them are not leading by example (certainly, no one is yet proposing that all adults be subject to such a requirement), but, in their own accounting, credit the labour of others to themselves. It will breed a generation of individuals with deep contempt for those who can wield power over others.
It will also breed a generation of individuals who do not know the joy of doing something for its own sake, for its own good. Even if students would have worked at the local library, spent time with senior citizens, or built houses for Habitat for Humanity, they will miss the joy of doing something because it advances one's most fundamental morals.
The only good thing that could come out of this is that children would understand how precious freedom is, because they will see what they cannot have under such a regime.
First, the conly constitutional authority the President has to do something like that is the power to call up militia. However, to call up persons of age 10 we would need to adopt a new Militia Act, amending 10 USC 311 to reduce the minumum age of the mandatory militia, subject to call up, down from 17 to 10.
Second, the only constitutional purposes for which militia can be called up are "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions", which doesn't include "community service" of the kind Mr. Obama seems to have in mind. However, it would be entirely appropriate to require the kids to be organized and trained in militia skills, especially the responsible and effective use of firearms, criminal investigation and arrest, and crowd control. Although disaster response is not a federal militia purpose, it could include such skills as long as a nexus is maintained to the other federal militia purposes.
Actually, most skills which public skills try to teach can be reasonably regarded to have a nexus to militia. Militiamen need to be able to read, write, do math, and have a knowleddge of government, law, and science. The beauty of making these things part of their militia training is that as militia they will be subject to military discipline. They may become more motivated to learn if the alternative is "gimme ten", KP or latrine duty, or being locked up in the stockade. Skipping school would be "missing a formation" or "desertion", and if we are in a state of war, the kid could be shot. Nothing like an Article 15 or court martial to focus the mind.
Let's all tell Mr. Obama we're behind him on this, if understood as outlined above.
"most skills which public schools ..."
Please tell me how this is not a fair presentation of the Obama proposal.
Mr. Obama describes his Plan as a national service program that is both “universal” and “voluntary.” Yet in a free society a national service program can't be both universal and truly voluntary.
One hurdle that Mr. Obama’s plan must vault is the U.S. Constitution, which limits the federal government to enumerated powers. Lacking the power to mandate universal community service directly, Mr. Obama candidly discloses his strategy: making federal funds contingent on schools having service programs that meet federal standards.
Because Mr. Obama calls his plan voluntary, it’s important to understand exactly what he says and doesn’t say. In both of his main speeches on national service – on July 2, 2008 and on December 5, 2007 – Barack Obama set his goal of 50 hours of service a year, promised that “We'll reach this goal,” and explained how he would do so for middle and high school children:
If Obama hadn’t promised that “We’ll reach this goal” of 50 hours a year of service for all students, one might read his proposal as indicating that he would require schools to have service programs, but that these programs might not require 50 hours of service. Yet the only way that almost every 11-year old public school student in the country would serve 50 hours a year – i.e., the only way that Mr. Obama could reach his goal – is by doing what he seems to indicate he’s going to do: setting a federal goal of 50 hours a year for each middle school student and reaching that goal by making federal funds contingent on middle schools requiring their students to serve those 50 hours.
Thus, it would be the public schools that would impose federal standards of coerced service on each child as part of their requirements for graduation. For students, service would be involuntary. Even for the public schools, their participation would be only nominally voluntary – for how many public schools can survive without federal assistance?
Lest there be any remaining doubt that Barack Obama’s “voluntary” universal service plan contemplates mandatory service for children, his Service Plan praises mandatory service in the sentence that immediately precedes his call for 50 hours of service: “Schools that require service as part of the educational experience create improved learning environments and serve as resources for their communities.” Moreover, in his Plan, he promises to “develop national guidelines for service-learning and community service programs,” thus not leaving the content of service programs to the states.
I suspect that Mr. Obama describes his mandatory plan as voluntary for good reasons: part of his plan – i.e., participating in his many new “Corps” – is indeed voluntary, and people bristle at the word “mandatory.”
The other issue is whether it will apply to private schools; he is unclear on this point, but if they get public funding, then I think the answer is YES.
As for setting government standards, he is clear the the govt will set standards for community service charities. And his SERVE-STUDY program for college students explicitly rejects working in college libraries as not the sort of charitable work that will count as community service.
Obama also has otherr sweeping plans to help bring much of private charity under the government umbrella:
We also fail to see those programs churning out students with a deep mistrust of those who wield power. If being required to perform some activity in school really has that effect, what we are to make of mandatory P.E. and music? What about anything students are demanded to do at school that they might not choose on their own? (History? Trigonometry? Duck-duck-goose?)
The faulty assumption seems to be that community service is merely "volunteering" that has nothing to do with learning, and therefore should remain purely "voluntary" as opposed to all the other forced activites that qualify as learning experiences.
FWIW, my wife teaches at a private school that does have a community-service requirement, but it's only for the high-school kids, and it's only 15 hours a year, and at least half of that can be fulfilled through some school-wide organized events.
In college, it jumps to 100 hours a year, but that is voluntary (though whether the proposed college pay of $40 an hour makes sense is another matter).
On the surface there is nothing wrong with the proposal. Voluntary community service can be an enriching experience both for the child and the community. The trouble starts when the government steps in. The inevitable effect is the substitution of individual volunteerism by a huge bureaucratic machine that subsists on tax money. Like many bad proposals, the detrimental effects show up slowly, but when they do, they are hard to remove.
To those who think this is good idea, the trouble is that these kind of proposals convert non-governmental organizations that flourish on private philanthropy into inefficient arms of the government. Also, as the linked article points out, those who lead these social-services groups become advocates for government-funded solutions to social problems. The result is more social problems, not less.
Volunteerism is a wonderful thing but to be truly voluntary and useful, it needs to be more than an arms length away from government control.
Now, it is possible that the government can still have some role in such programs and have a positive effect -- if it is done the right way. However I fear that will not be the case.
First, middle schoolers in my area are 12-13. So by specifying that it would begin with 5th graders (10-11), you're making an unfair choice about how to represent this proposal.
You then suggest that these 5th graders would be "cadres" of a "national security force"--rhetoric that suggests a rather misleading image of what the service learning or commuunity service would entail. So yes, that's unfair.
Your real dispute is with the word "required", because like I said before, you apparently do not believe that service learning is really "learning" rather than simply volunteering, something that as the name implies should be a purely personal choice of how to spend time. I assume you have no problem with requiring public school students to perform other activities that are deemed useful for learning. Community service can provide valuable practical service that makes lessons more meaningful and memorable to students. Those who participate in these programs are more successful as students in a number of ways, according to empirical research on the subject.
As an example, the local school here has students go on field trips to a bread factory and a dairy, among other places. I suppose they can opt out, but it's "required" for practical purposes. Presumably they do this not simply to break up the monotony of the day, but because something valuable might be gained from seeing how such places operate. It's not so different with service learning.
Should the govt. withhold funding unless schools institute a minumum amt of service? No, I'd agree with you there. The approach sounds too heavy handed. But with a few changes it could be a terrific initiative for our young people and this country.
Exactly.
Mandatory community service sucks in much that is private and diverse and spits out an excessively homogenized version of the good, a version that would come with a government seal of approval.
It’s probably not an accident that many American groups who tend to favor greater government largesse are relatively stingy in their own donations to charity.
Nor do I think it an accident that Americans are the most generous people in the world, while the few European countries that have universal military or community service have populations that fall far short of America’s in donating their time and money to the less fortunate.
For charity work to be truly transformative in a positive way, perhaps it must be truly voluntary.
If you proposed, "Okay, let's take six days from the school year, and have no class; just send the classes out to do community service instead"... you'd get laughed out of the room. Even the people in favor of volunteer service aren't going to tell you that it's more important than classroom instruction.
So instead, we should have kids take six days of their own time, to go to state-sponsored events, with state-paid supervisors (because of course it has to be supervised!), to perform the same tasks. Er... or we could just pay teachers a bit more and hold six more days of class, I guess. Which would benefit children more?
You can turn that argument around too, of course. If we think students should spend six more days a year in school, why aren't they now? Haven't we already made a determination of how many days a student should be in school and should not be in school? If they've actually got this extra free time, shouldn't we extend the days they're in school? If we're not extending those days, maybe it's because we've already determined they don't have this extra time?
Keep in mind that children, unlike their parents, are routinely expected to perform mandatory tasks outside of the dedicated hours of employment; you may get to work 9-5 and go home, but Junior has to take an hour or two (or three, or four - teachers are not good about coordinating) of work home with him. In that sense, it's asinine to require children to perform additional unpaid labor.
I think this relates to a particular mindset -- one that dismisses private endeavours (and whose advocates are often personally stingy) but expects the government to solve all the problems of the country (apparently with money that would drop from the sky).
Two actual projects from my local elementary: Students learned about plant biology as they designed, planted, and maintained gardens around the school and on public spaces in the neighborhood. Students learning about computers helped to design some web pages with student resources, and for PTA events. I know that some of these events took place during the regular school day, while others may have taken place after school, but it's "service" that obviously involves practical application of the things being taught in the classroom. Not exactly what I think of as the work of "cadres" of a "civilian national security force", but this is service learning and it's effective both for academic teaching and as a way to get students invested in what they are doing in school and in what happens in their communities.
An actual project from a university here: Students serve as translators for patients at a local clinic. Some of the students come from language classes and get an opportunity to hone their skills with real native speakers, and others are pursuing careers in health care and will obtain valuable practical experience this way. Where is the downside to "forcing" this, any worse than the downside of "forcing" students to take pop quizzes? A lot of students learn effectively by doing, and it doesn't hurt that they have more pride in and commitment to their work when it involves this kind of service.
RESPONSE:
Thanks for responding.
1. A month ago, I actually researched the literature on middle schools and what grades they start. I believe that over 90% have moved to 6th grade (some are even younger, starting in 5th grade). The ones that start in 7th grade are uncommon and anyways are traditionally called Jr. High Schools, not middle schools, which is what Obama was referring to. Last, he sends his own kids go to a school that starts middle school at 6th grade, so that's an additional reason to think he meant exactly what I took him to mean. As for the age entering middle school, in most of the few states I looked at, most children would be 11 when they entered but the younger ones would be 10.
2. The language about a "civilian national security force" comes from the July 2 speech, though it was not in the pre-released text. He said:
It's clear from the speech that Obama is referring to his many new and expanded "corps" and the programs for student community service. With all the "corps" and Obama calling them a "civilian national security force," I think my use of the word "cadre" is both fair and less extreme than the language he used himself.
There are a lot of things that would be absolutely delightful to teach small children. That does not mean that every proposed method of teaching those thing is appropriate, effective, and wise.
Furthermore, the government simply does not have business teaching morals to children. Liberals, for some reason, fail to see their own viewpoints as a version of morality, but morals it is, nonetheless, and morals it is that the government is attempting to shove down the throats of students, as if one can equate the exercise of one's freedom, morality, and talent with trigonometry.
There are good reasons for the government to not get into the business of teaching morality. One would think that we would have learned such, back when the government's version of morality included everything from Prohibition to denying basic civil liberties to people under the theory that it was best for society.
Let public schools stick to reading and math - that which they are barely able to do anyway.
When the Red Cross comes to campus, students will wait in line for two hours to give blood. There is a severe shortage of blood in the summer time, and, in general. What is wrong with "forcing" healthy students to donate? I mean, they are going to do it anyway, and they get the satisfaction of knowing that they saved people's lives - which is a heck of a lot more satisfying than planting a few flowers.
Given the benefits of breast feeding and having a stay-at-home parent, what is wrong with "forcing" new moms to do both?
Sure it can. It can be universal in the sense of being universally available. It can also mean that he's setting an (enthusiastically high) goal of high participation achieved through sheer voluntary popularity.
When a business states that it has a goal of growing its market share by 10% next quarter, does that mean it's going to go out and force 10% more people to use its products? No, it means that it will use techniques in its power, such as making its products available in more stores or increasing their appeal through redesign or marketing. The 10% goal means that the business will measure the degree to which it has succeeded by looking for that rise in market share. Setting a goal for a program's popularity does not mean that the program must be applied by force.
I don't believe in "service learning" because it amounts to unfair competition. If towns and states want to hire teenagers to do various jobs, they can either pay the current minimum wage or pass a law reducing that wage. But the attitude expressed above is tawdry paranoia and fearmongering.
And if that doesn't work, we always have a massive welfare state enforced by a militarized police force to expand and fall back on.
I hate to be really obnoxious, so I won't list all the words which fit people who think the joys of volunteering for worthy causes can be learned when it's forced. Of course, they don't think so. They just like seeing others forced.
This is terrible.
Exactly right.
That Mr. Obama’s view of service is narrower than mine is suggested by his proposal to move from college work-study to college “Serve-Study.” He plans to mandate that 25% of college work-study jobs be directed away from working on campus, “such as in libraries and dining halls,” to working in the community, eventually hoping to raise that to proportion to 50% of work-study hours.
Thus, Obama wouldn’t count as “service” my wife’s college work-study job as a weekend librarian in the University of Chicago’s School of Social Work (one of the country’s best), but if my wife had done one of Barack Obama’s preferred tasks, picking up trash in the slum behind the School, Obama would count that as service.
Reasonable people may differ on whether aiding in the education of social work students is more valuable than picking up trash.
Yet in my wife’s student days, picking up trash would probably have done little good in the long run because (as the Boston Globe revealed) the government-supported housing projects developed or managed by Obama’s friends, clients, and biggest contributors within 500 yards of the back of Chicago’s School of Social Work were allowed to deteriorate by his political donors, pretty much destroying most of the temporary improvements made in that neighborhood.
For my wife, a future academic who grew up in a poor, racially diverse neighborhood, with parents who worked on assembly lines in small factories and had no college education (one had no high school education), she probably benefited more from her intern-like paid job in a library than she would have from picking up trash.
Hmmmm...
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
"The [Obamessiah] Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The [Democratic Party] and the [Republican Party] came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Collective "voluntarism" is not voluntary, it's collectivism and a type of nascent or formative statism, it also erodes individuation and individually assigned and chosen ethical accomplishments. Genuine community proceeds out of the latter, not the former.
To be sure, I would prefer to leave this to be decided at the local level, rather than federal. But we're moving toward federal control of scools anyway
Rosenburg attempted to get someone from Obama's campaign to come on the show to counter Kurtz prior to the show. The spokeman demanded the name of the station manager and then hung up on Rosenberg's staffer. Obama's national headquarters is down the street from WGN's studios. Many of the pro-Obama callers cited the talking points reported above. I don't wnat to hi-jack this thread but I thought that for anyone interested in Kurtz' research and the implications that it has on Obama's relationship with Ayers, etc. this would be importatnt information.
Can you say "Obama Youth"?
If this happens I'll start a nonprofit that specializes in activities that result in libertarian and conservative oriented learning by the students. Free labor!
And young minds all reading Anthem and watching The Fountainhead!
The difference is that math and phys ed are important education, but mandatory community service teaches them the pernicious notion that the state is the boss whereas they should learn the opposite, that the individual, the people are sovereign.
. I suppose they could be the Young Obama Komsomol...
If we want to teach the kids something useful, require them to get a job.
Abe summarizes it best
like homework?
"The first black man with a good chance to become president, and he wants to bring back slavery. Fantastic."
wow.
Education policy seems to be written by rich whites who attended schools with all smart people who wanted to learn, where no one worked a job, and where they plenty of free time for resume building.
After watching the HBO series about the pathetic Baltimore City High Schools, does anyone believe that a shcool district where most high schoolers read at the 4th grade level is going to be able to document a community service requirement.
As with most educational reforms, the poor schools will ignore them, the middle class schools with cut other programs to fund them, and the rich kid schools are already doing them.
If you can ask that question with a straight face, you will not be able to comprehend any answer anyone might give.
I'm not positive, but I believe you are mischaracterizing (or at least failing to mention) several aspects of the policy.
First, I believe the Obama plan (based solely on the links you provided above) would be implemented through the imposition of conditions on the receipt of federal funds for public education. Similar conditions have repeatedly been upheld (e.g., the drinking age), and I'm not sure on what grounds you think they would be struck down in this case. Perhaps you could clarify?
Second, and relatedly, I believe Obama intends to implement the plan only in public schools. "Universal" strikes me as rhetorical, although it certainly is used confusingly by the campaign. But I believe the intended meaning is "essentially universal among public school students because most public school districts would be crazy to turn down federal funds."
I'm pretty sure the suggestion that healthy students be forced to give blood was reductio ad absurdum of the argument that compulsory performance of a service that does good is okay, because the result is a perceived net benefit. To wit, the end justifies the means.
I personally average 200-300 hours of community server per year. I believe that charity begins at home, community service makes me a better person and makes my community a better place to live.
I was an Eagle Scout and had to participate with and organize community service projects to obtain this award. My Eagle project was to organize, fund, and complete the restoration of the doorway of the a local historical site. I was 13 years old. There was over 1000 man-hours of labor in that project. 30 years later, I still have a sense of accomplishment when I see those doors.
However, I do this willingly. If I was forced to do it, I wouldn't do it with the same willing heart and I wouldn't gain from it.
This is my basic problem with liberal solutions. These are people with a good heart. They want to help people. They see the answers, but can't get anyone else to do what they want, so they turn to Government to force people into their mold of morality. People aren't charitable enough, fine, we'll have the Government pay for the Charity and extract the money by force in the form of taxes. People aren't doing enough community service, fine, we'll force criminals to do it as part of their sentencing. Still not enough people doing community service, fine, now we will force school children to do service work to be able to graduate.
Taxes do not equal Charity and Forced Service is not the same as willing service. Society won't change because you force them to act the way you want them to.
A willing heart and willing hands are what we want to encourage. Train non-profit organizations on how to maximize the efforts of occasional volunteers. Help them advertise their needs to their community. Teach people that service is fun. Train Schools and Churches how to organize service projects. Publicly recognize the outstanding accomplishments of volunteers in your community.
But don't ever think that forced service will change someone's heart. Tying things like graduation requirements into Service is wrong. It sends the wrong message.
That said: Everybody. Stop. Using. The. Public. Schools. As. An. Intervention. Point. For. Public. Policy.
On anything.
Last time I think it was the HPV vaccine we were discussing. I have no problem with the vaccine as such. I just think it's outrageous to use public school attendance as a way to make the vaccine mandatory. Same with community service.
If the Boy Scouts, a private university, or a church chooses to make community service a requirement for membership, that's fine with me. But leave the public schools out of it. Most families have no choice but to use them, so you've basically got a captive population for social engineering. That's what makes this proposal a problem. Of course, the proponents will say that's what makes this proposal attractive. Nobody is going to get me to agree with that worldview.
Now, if it were a matter of merely providing the opportunity for kids to get something, whether a vaccine or a chance to volunteer, then I have no problem with using the school property as a place to coordinate. A school is a big building that isn't in use all day. My only problem is with imposing non-educational requirements as terms of attendance. And I don't buy the arguments presented above that service is automatically educational. It may be, but that proposition has to be defended on a case-by-case basis.
Maybe kids could keep their classrooms neat and clean by volunteering to sweep, mop, vacuum and clean the windows.
No possibility, or desirability, that we push back? Just go with the flow?
runape,That's an enormous bug, not a feature.
Advocates of "mandatory volunteering" have yet to explain what someone gets out of doing "meals on wheels" that they don't get from delivering for Dominos. Is not getting paid a benefit?
If they're going to be forced to clean up parks, how about forcing them to do front yard work for private property as well?
Good point. Some information about that is here:
McCain is obviously a Marxist.
Because they are smaller than us. Duh!
Why is it not obvious that Obama lusts for the power to, among many other things, control how I raise my child? Why is it not obvious that service to the state (at age 10 or 11!) is the ideology of totalitarianism? Do people need to see "brownshirts" marching in the streets before they will grasp the implications of an Obama child corps?
I'm glad vassil petrov mentioned Hitler, because everyone knows it's a short, slippery slope from enforcing civic duty to invading countries and targeting sending people to concentration camps.
It may not be short, but it is a slippery slope. It erodes values of freedom of association. And of the meaning of words. "Enforcing civic duty" is nothing but doublespeak.
Two of the four were in a HS which required community service (working on campus in media library counted). The 4th was in NHS which required 10 hours a year (x 2 years). Community library work counted. Problem with #4 was it was hard to find local community service 'work.' The hospital wasn't taking any more volunteer kids. She ended up at a food bank which meant she (or we) drove 10 or 15 miles each way. Nice.
Three of the kids did summer mission work for anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks, here and/or abroad. Does that count?
Who is going to provide the jobs, create the jobs, supervise the jobs and get the kids to the jobs?? Obama's people? Or some poor teacher who just wants to *teach*? Or another federal employee who can never be fired?
Why does everything the groupie-think-people want to do involve more and more positions and more and more paper work? (Mandatory vounteering equals thousands and thousands of dead trees for absolutely no reason but to make do gooders feel gooder. Do us all a favor -- Save the trees.)
Forget the schools. You guys who are so flip about the kids doing it at school have no idea what it's like. REAL educational things are getting shunted aside because of heavy layers of state (tied to federal) requirements.
My last kid did honors and AP classes, NHS, 4-H, Pony Club, cello and worked part time. Worked in the church nursery regularly. Oh yea, and her NHS volunteer work. And a mission trip.... Sometimes she slept.
So who is going to do the paper work to satisfy the apparatchiks that her nursery duty was worthy of credit for "volunteer" community servce? It is none of their *&^% business.
She was just a high school kid, and she only got to do this once. She did not need to be told she had to do one more thing (except do the dishes ;-) ). I am sure she will be a productive member of society. MAKING people do things for the good of the state (who defines that?) is very very intrusive.
She doesn't belong to the State and neither do we. The State belongs to We, the people.
Barak Obama apparently didn't learn that growing up, or from Saul Alinksy or Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or Father Pflegler.
Does it help people to volunteer (the volunteers as well as the project)? Of course. But instead of extorting it, how about exhorting a culture of volunteerism ... oops! Wait ... think post hurricane relief work ... think tsunami relief donations ... think ... fill in the blanks, folks ....
Mandatory volunteerism, or even mandatory community service is not what we want, need or desire. More people need to realize what this guy has in mind to "organize" us.
Its beyond me how so many cannot see the distinction.
Also, a mass of volunteers will overwhelm the system, and what we will see is a lot of young people's time wasted doing meaningless things just to 'fill the required time'.
So the Hitler-Jugend would have been OK if it just hadn't led to "invading countries and targeting sending people to concentration camps"?
Don Miller- I think its wonderful you devote so much time to charity. Perhaps you were introduced to it at home, and discovered its rewards. Myself, I was introduced to it while in high school, which did have required community service. It was probably one of the most important educational experience of my life, one I might never have learned had it not been for high school. The program doesn't force adults to do community service, it forces children. We force children to do alot of things, so that they are equipped to make the best choices for themselves when they're adults. I don't see how this is any different from forcing kids to learn history, or science, or gym, or one of the million other skills learned in school that may be useless, but also may help the child make the best choices for himself when he is an adult.
Just my thoughts....
Point taken, but it's my sneaking suspicion that most old-people can be readily manhandled, or successfully threatened, into doing "community service" work.
Two words, just two words: withhold meds.
At the time Guyana had a population of barely 650,000 people and yet had the following military and para-military groups; Guyana Defense Force, Guyana Police, the People's Militia, and National Service (actually a paramilitary force). One can well imagine how much of a drain these groups were on national resources.
Add to that the requirement for all school children to spend countless hours in the hot tropical sun practicing for "Mass Games" to be staged for the country's independence celebrations (based on the North Korean practice. The then president of Guyana visited North Korea and fell in love with their "mass games").
This national service proposal is simply East African socialism in disguise (read Kenyatta, Nyrere, Nkrumah and others); just as Obama's relatives are practicing it in Kenya and as it was attempted in the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.
The upshot of "national service" in Guyana was that the country slipped from its status as the "bread basket of the Caribbean" under British rule to one rivaling Haiti as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
The final straw was when the government mandated that all "civil servants" must volunteer to cut sugar cane as part of their national service. My mother decided that we'd be better off migrating to the U.S.
I can't help but think that this is part of Bill Ayers' philosophy adopted by Obama since Ayers made similar proposals under the guise of transforming education in Venezuela.
FWIW, I'm a black man but I wasn't thinking of voting for Obama - there are lots of blacks who think like me - and this proposal certainly gives me further pause.
While this article focuses on Obama's proposal, McCain also has his own mandatory national service scheme. So I don't see much difference between the candidates on this issue. Neither one stands up for the right of the individual to his own life.
Government should intrude in the life of its people as little as possible. Protecting children from cigarettes when they are not really capable of making informed choices about their health is quite a different thing from forcing them to 'work' one or two hours a week 'for their own good'.
Also, requiring them to learn reading, math and science - knowledge which is necessary to get along in life on a basic level - is quite different from "you should volunteer because it will make you a finer person".
And there is a lot of nonsense being 'taught' in schools today. I would support streamlining the schools' curriculum. Afterall, American's average public school kids are not exactlying excelling in the basics, are they? Its is far more important that the kids read, write and calculate well than is it that they volunteer at this stage. Leave the character development to the parents.
One could also look at the GI bill and our (truly) volunteer military as a better example of a way to have government encourage participation. In this event, colleges themselves are not forced to send students to boot camp, but those who choose boot camp are provided *additional* benefits in the form of college tuition. This sweetens the pot a bit without taking away something that citizens already have.
The proposal by Obama is, like most of his suggestions, a well-intentioned disaster. My kids participate in charity through their church. I refuse to have to fill out a fricking federal form to explain it to avoid some other penalty.
Obama is bad, bad, bad news for America.
Adam,
You make a good point about forcing children to do things because it is good for them, but you miss the big picture.
The role of schools is to teach children how to read and write.
I support schools providing volunteer opportunities for students. But forced volunteerism by government isn't volunteerism, it is servitude.
It is great that you learned a lesson from the Government forcing you to do something. But just because you learned a good lesson from it, doesn't mean that is the best solution for teaching the same lesson to others.
American society has never been about working together is you don’t want to, it is only about freedom and rugged individualism!
The students retain the fruits of the labor: their education.
They're not doing math problems for IBM, or geography questions for an oil company, or spelling checks for the Washington Post.
How do you think mandatory service is going to affect the high school dropout rate? Especially to a junior who skipped the labor requirements during freshman and sophomore year?
And the "point of school" is not to expose them to "different experiences". It is TO TEACH THE BASIC SKILLS THEY NEED TO GET ALONG IN LIFE such as reading, writing and calcuation.
Good grief. What are we coming to? Reasonable minds indeed!
Juvenile offenders often had a record of minor crimes before getting sent to the residential program. The most popular sentence for these misdemeanors? Community service. So, when I first floated the idea to the kids about volunteering for the barbecue, one of them shot back:
"Volunteer service? Why? I ain't done nothing wrong!"
Er... crickets?
The Company of Young Canadians,a government sponsored volunteer corps, was a flop. In the 1970s, the federal government also ran string of youth hostels,none of which are still operating. The government gave grants to any number of volunteer groups,most which became stridently political.
Its strange that, in the U.S. a country which is known for it volunteerism,anyone would think that this kind of thing was necessary.
It reminds one of the New Deal programs that we copied in the 1970s. Of course, conditions in 1970s were nothing like those in the Great Depression. It goes without saying that, despite all the gloom and doom from the Democrats, the U.S. is not in the same shape as it was in the 1930s either.
Biggest problem with importing that here is going to be transportation. The Japanese walk home or take public transportation - they don't have school buses. A lot of US students, quite literally, have no other way to get home besides that school bus. Requiring them to stay after school is requiring one of their parents to come get them...
Back to the main issue... It's not like I didn't do any community service back in the day. I was in Teen Court, I was in the Scouts, I built a bridge for a service project. (Didn't actually file for Eagle - they don't cotton to agnostics - but even if I didn't actually get it, I earned it. ;p) But it would have been pretty darned annoying to have had to document hours spent here or hours spent there! I'd have probably done less of it if I were just trying to tick off a box on the appropriate form.
On top of that, what happens when school administrators don't approve specific forms of service? "Sorry, your church volunteer work doesn't count, we only count officially approved government volunteer work"? Great, more lawsuits, that's exactly what we need.
Michelle Obama’s speech at UCLA 3 Feb 08:
Like the Gambler says: "Read them, and weep".
But does that mean we can scale this up to a national level and get the results to increase in proportion to the number of people enrolled? I would tend to doubt it.
I know I read a book about this at some point, and the author may have been with the Harvard School of Public Health. It was about providing free government money to successful nonprofits in order to make them bigger and help them serve more people. One of two things always seemed to happen. Either the enlarged nonprofit captured the funding agency to keep the money flowing (a sort of a charitable-industrial complex), or the funding agency captured the nonprofit and turned it into another government bureaucracy. Whatever was innovative and tailored to local circumstances got squeezed out by the latter process.
If it's free labor rather than free money, I suspect that the latter would be more likely. Whatever agency approved the service programs would eventually develop a formula, and kids everywhere would be stuck doing the same make-work projects. Regardless of local need. Treating everyone the same is mostly a virtue in government, but in this case it isn't.
And then there's the question of how useful all this unskilled labor will be, especially at younger ages. I suppose the older kids could do physical work, but does anyone else remember how hard it was to shovel snow before they got their adult height and musculature? I suspect it would make more sense to hire people in their late teens and early 20s, train them properly, and let them do real projects that they could focus on for an extended period of time. Maybe something like, I don't know, Americorps?
At some point, the voluntary program will step on the wrong toes or will impact on someone's turf. For example, what will the teachers unions say when a state sponsored project for high school kids starts sending them into elementary schools as unpaid tutors. After all, isn't it likely the union will think that only paid, dues paying memebers should have that role.
The idea may sound great to some out of Obama's mouth, but it affects too many entrenched Democratic constituencies.
According to this article, Kurtz's actual words were: "Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers."
NY Times
Housing the poor is a thorny issue:
1. We don't want the poor to live in dumpsters.
2. The top-down, public housing model has failed completely. The high rises built post-WWII have almost universally been torn down.
3. The bottoms-up, community-organized public-private model fails when crooks and/or incompetents try to manage the housing.
4. The assumption is that developers/operators of market-rate housing will not house the poor, because it is unprofitable.
Also, do we have a reason to think that helping other students in a library would not be considered appropriate service work? I saw nothing to suggest that.
One would think you would support this kind of measure, if only to see local communities give up reliance on federal funds. Or perhaps you'd rather see unfettered access to federal funds?
My comment was not meant as you take it; it was, indeed, a reducto ad absurdum.
I'm not Sarcastro; I'm a libertarian; and I've been commenting on this site for two years. The latter should have given you a clue as to every previous statement.
And why is it OK to question the patriotism of a teenager who wants to work at McD's in his spare time, but it's a horrible thing (and racist!) to question Obama's patriotism?
Forcing teenagers to clean up at a nursing home is not activism. It may be a bit educational, but I'll posit the nation as a whole would be better off by requiring an additional high school course in Economics than by having kids pick up trash by the side of the road.
When it comes to volunteering, I read that he is proposing a kind of larger-scale United Way style matching of willing volunteers with appropriate programs. How this gets translated into mandated labor like cutting sugar cane is beyond me. No evidence that this is what he has in mind, and no evidence that we would indeed fall down the slippery slope to commie work programs because we've encouraged more people to voluntarily engage in service. The proposal specifically talks about the current problem that many people wish to serve, including this large retiring baby boomer population, though we have few effective ways of matching up their talents with the opportunities.
Now, back to the required service learning proposal for a moment. Service learning is not about teaching morality, any more than the forced practice of civics or hand-washing or rope-climbing is about teaching morality. Service learning is also about learning, not just about things like picking up trash because it makes somebody feel warm inside. The argument is absolutely NOT that "compulsory performance of a service that does good is okay, because the result is a perceived net benefit." The argument is that compulsory performance of the service is good because it improves learning and academic performance and graduate rates. How so?
Most students will learn a language better when they can practice speaking it with native speakers. Most students will learn math better when they can teach it to someone else or put it into practice solving real problems. Most students will become better critical thinkers and managers when they have to practice organizing and executing a project themselves. Learning by doing is not the only way of learning, but it is a powerful reinforcement of other methods and most students retain information better when they can have this sort of practice. Don't trust me--plenty of empirical study supports this.
Big E. wants his/her kid to have an internship in a career rather than engaging in "volunteer" service. However, the service learning class that kid takes in his/her major in college is likely to offer precisely the sort of real-life experience (not to mention networking contacts) that the internship provides. The pre-med student now has real experience interacting with patients. The advertising student has real experience putting together a marketing campaign. Where is the downside? How is forcing this somehow in a different class from forcing a pop quiz on the same subjects? Is there any evidence that the traditional homework assignment or quiz is going to produce more "learning" or expertise than the service project would?
We force students to do all kinds of things. If we're forcing them to do it just so they can "feel good", then you're all right, it's asinine. My point is that this is not what service learning is all about. Look into it, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Yeah, I know it is not a real argument, but I will bite
The Federal Government is BROKE. They have more programs than they can afford.
Obama is proposing more and more programs, but the money doesn't exist to pay for them.
I would much prefer the Feds give up funding schools at all levels. If a community decides that their school needs that money, they can pass a local option tax of somekind to pay for it.
Lets propose this "National Service Idea". Our road infrastructure is breaking down. The Federal Government should withhold Highway funding from any State or Community that doesn't require all driver's license holders spend 20 days per year working on a road crew in community service to solve this terrible National problem.
I mean, its good for the good of the country, you would be happy to give up 4 weeks of pay for better roads, right?
So let me get this straight. He taxes our money away from us for some stated purpose: to fund eduction, for example. But only returns it to you if you complete some other, fairly unrelated activity: compusory volunteerism. Isn't that a little like paying for something twice?
Volunteering down at the old folks home? Clog the toilets with toilet paper rolls, unplug some computers, and go bang on some doors and freak out some old folks.
We have to paint the hallways in the school? Oops, this bucket of paint just spilled all over the carpet.
We have to serve soup at a soup kitchen? This old bandaid and these scabs will give the soup a little more flavor.
Even if just 1% or 2% of the kids that are forced to volunteer take this sort of attitude, all the program has done is created more work for real adult workers to clean up the mess.
"Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
2 Corin. 9:7
I know that this is not a religion blog, but why on earth would a man who calls himself a Christian make a proposal which effectively forces people to "volunteer"?
I have a real hard time believing there are people that are willing to serve, but don't have an effective way to do it. Apparently they don't really want to serve all that badly if they can't walk to their nearest church or Goodwill store, open a phone book, or conduct a google search.
Lili- We already support intrusion into children's welfare by the state for the purposes of education, so I have no idea what you're talking about when you say that I can't support this "intrusion". I think that learning about helping others is a valuable education tool. Most people would think there's a whole lot more then reading and writing involved in the "basic skills of life". Is it bad to have mandatory classes we are unlikely to use frequently in life? It might help children better figure out what they want to do when they grow up.
"Also, because some children have less than ideal circumstances at home is not an arguement [sic] for bringing all children under the aupices [sic] of the state." What qualifies as "some" children? You and I have to come under the auspices of the state to learn a whole lotta things that didn't help us but help others. I doubt your using chemistry and biology much these days. Yet I suspect a whole lotta scientists would never become scientists unless they were "forced" to be exposed to science as children.
No facet of education you've suggested throughout this thread would be better imparted to students via mandatory volunteerism, than through a robust classroom curriculum.
Sorry then... I'm 0 for 2 on the 'detecting sarcasm' game today. And yet, the parodies are so hard to tell from the real thing... shouldn't that tell the statists something?
Silliness aside, you've hit on an issue (how to manage skilled and truly voluntary volunteers) with which I have been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Short version: it ain't trivial.
Longer version: skilled volunteers often share a common misconception with unskilled volunteers. Often neither understands the importance of quotidian tasks being done regularly and routinely. For example, how do you convince a damned good volunteer engineer that not only is clever scrounging, kludging and installation of good equipment important, but also sweeping up the mess, or refilling the soap dispensers in the rest rooms. Even worse: responding to the midnight phone call, driving red lights and siren to an isolated site to fix the cable the mice chewed and crashed the system. "Not my job description" is the deadliest enemy of any volunteer organization.
New unskilled volunteers often feel they are being denied entrance to some imagined inner circle of grand poobahs if they are asked to do routine and sometimes unpleasant stuff. Skilled volunteers often take positive umbrage at it, because they think their skills are far too important to waste their time with such mundane tasks.
Those who ultimately keep any truly volunteer organization afloat and functioning well are those who recognize the importance of both kinds of work, and perform both kinds willingly as necessary, usually in the same day.
Maybe that's why, as legend has it, visitors to zen monasteries are often surprised to discover that the old monk they saw sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets during their weekend stay is actually the roshi.I'll settle for peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather; not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus.
Puleezz, the grease you're pouring on this slippery slope is reducing the coefficient of friction to near zero.
Regardless of any of this idea's potential merits, as recounted in painful detail above, mandatory "voluntary" charity community service is fundamentally against the America character, our Founding principles of self-reliance, limited government and non-state imposed charity, and, frankly, a scary means, of course,"for the children" to slipstream even more govt control into local matters.
That you cannot see the difference between teaching someone to read and calculate – and requiring them to participate in certain activities for their “personal growth” is maddening.
We tolerate some intrusion of Government into our lives. But we need to seek to limit it, to keep it to a minimum – not to look for ways to expand it.
I think, sir, that you are what my mother would call a busy body.
Sarcastro: it's not relevant. Without turning this into a religion debate: Matthew 22:21 is about the justice of the tax imposed upon Jews. From Ryrie: "The burning question in the minds of many Jews of that day was simply this: if God gave the land of Israel to the Hebrews, and if God meant them to live there, and if He received their sacrifices and offerings in acknowledgment of His relationship to them, how could they pay tribute to any other power, king, god, or person? If Christ said that they should pay, they could then charge Him with disloyalty to Judiasm; if He said no, they could denounce him to the Romans."
Matthew merely states that you still owe taxes to your sovereign; it does not sanction, as wise and infallible, everything that a sovereign may demand of a person. 2 Corin. tells us that charity and giving must be totally voluntary - it must be that which a person has decided in his heart to give. Obama ought to know that you cannot force people - by receipt of federal funds or otherwise - to develop that spirit.
To put it another way: Matthew 22:21 also tells us to render unto God what is God's, not render unto Caesar what is God's. So you're proving my point. :)
Other than the thousands and thousands volunteering to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, you mean.
Even conceding for the sake of argument all the beautiful outcomes and pleasant results which you claim, can you address the practical issues of millions of very part-time volunteers and the supervision they would require?
And the paperwork necessary to track it--from schools that can barely meet the no-child-left behind requirements?
And the additional employees needed to track it all?
What I am hearing from the proponents is something along the lines of, "With a perfect system, everything would go perfectly." Which is true, but not very helpful. You can't get the program to be successful in its goals by fiat, and the numerous practical barriers simply haven't been addressed.
Remember, we are talking about inner-city schools here, as well as the middle- and upper-class ones.
The schools already have too much on their plate. Just getting basic literacy right is a big deal for most schools, and now you want to mandate another hour a week? If anything, we should be reducing the burden on schools, not increasing it.
I read that he wants to effectively "require" service learning by tying it to financial rewards for the public schools.
This is exactly the way the do it in Cuba. Individual schools are rewarded by the amount of that schools "safra", or the amount of, say, cane their students harvest. Thus, what happens is that you have school officials forcing students to "volunteer" harder, or, as you like to put it, "learn more service."
How this gets translated into mandated labor like cutting sugar cane is beyond me. No evidence that this is what he has in mind, and no evidence that we would indeed fall down the slippery slope to commie work programs because we've encouraged more people to voluntarily engage in service.
The thing is, it's not "encouraged", it is forced.
The proposal specifically talks about the current problem that many people wish to serve, including this large retiring baby boomer population, though we have few effective ways of matching up their talents with the opportunities.
Where and who is this "we" you are referring to? The person that wants to serve finds the opportunity to do so where he or she will be able to use their talents. Why do we need the government to get involved in this? The person that tells you "Sure, Id like to serve, but I just cant find the right venue for said service" is, im sorry to say, lying to you. They dont wantto serve at all, just make you believe they do. People that wantto volunteer their services find the right venue on their own.
That's before you even get to the question of whether volunteering and service learning are good for the students, or good for the recipients. I would say that volunteering should NOT occur if it is good for the students at the expense of the recipients, for example if students have a day out but the work is done badly for lack of adequate supervision. (This seems likely.) It is fine if volunteer work costs the volunteers something and benefits the recipients, but the government should not be mandating this sort of thing. Especially not from people who are too young to vote.
Is lack of unskilled volunteers even a problem, anyway? I would think that the usual problems would be disorganized administration, lack of specific skills in something complicated like electrical work or driving large trucks, or lack of physical raw material such as food or building materials. Picking a stupid or counterproductive goal can also be a problem. Every volunteer effort I've ever been involved in with has gotten stuck on one of these, at least for a time, even when plenty of willing bodies were around.
Don, I think you concisely phrased the (misguided) assumption upon which many of these posts are based.
If the point of the schools was simply to teach the students how to read and write, our society would crumble. We would create readers and writers without the ability to think creatively, to solve problems, and to create. In fact, the point of schools is to create citizens. Yes, literate citizens, but also much more than that. Students should be able to see the world as we created it and move it beyond that. They are our next leaders, and simply limiting school to the three R's ignores that crucial fact.
I started volunteering in high school because one of my teachers imposed a 10 hour requirement (in a semester class) in order to pass - beyond the high school's own community service requirement. I am beyond grateful to her for that. I learned responsibility and leadership - two things which are not found in a classroom. More importantly, I learned what it meant to work in the real work and to maintain my perspective on life.
I continued that work throughout college and then went in to Teach for America. Community service is important for all. It reminds us that we are not alone; that we are part of a greater world in which we all much play a part. It teaches the privileged kids that they should always appreciate their privilege and the less privileged that there is work they can do in their own communities to change them for the better.
The fact is that we "force" children to do things all the time because it is good for them. We have mandatory PE requirements because we can see our nation become more and more unhealthy and we do not want that in our future. Obama, and others like myself, see a nation divided and struggling in many ways. Volunteerism is a potential solution.
Dan Weber - How do you think mandatory service is going to affect the high school dropout rate? Especially to a junior who skipped the labor requirements during freshman and sophomore year?
Dan, I think the volunteering requirement may have the opposite impact that you are assuming will occur. Volunteering teaches students that there is more to life to care about and that school requirements are relevant in the real world. These students are not dropping out because they "skipped the labor requirements," or because they are lazy - they are dropping out because they see no relevance to schooling or because they have other responsibilities. The latter group would not likely respond to volunteering, but for the former, volunteering has the potential to bring them back.
Finally, for all those who claim that community service opportunities are too hard to find, this argument has no merit. There are millions of opportunities - some near home (in church, through Scouting, through school and libraries, and many many others) and some farther away.
Now, before I literally die laughing, back to our regularly-scheduled political debate...
Are these citizens of the "Starship Troopers" mold?
Again, no one is claiming that volunteerism isn't good. We are all claiming that a federal mandate to do it in the schools would be bad.
I'm glad volunteering worked out for you. Was your school that required the community service public? Was it suburban or inner-city? What was the funding level per-child vs the median national funding? What percentage of the kids spoke fluent English?
And frankly, if we are looking for ways to build good citizens, then basic literacy for disadvantaged kids is a much better place to start than requiring mandatory service for the privilaged. Many of whom are already doing it for the college admission benefits.
I appreciate you have dedicated your life to service, but your teacher was dead wrong to mandate service as a requirement for passing your class.
It isn't service then. It is work. True charitible service comes from the heart and the reward is paid in the personal growth that comes with it.
You are an anecdotal evidence of a success story, but I would argue that your success in this service requirement is more reflective of your basic personality and spirit than it was a result of what you learned from the assignment.
I would bet money, if I interviewed everyone you went to school with, I could find someone who resented the service requirement and were left bitter about the experiance. Is their experiance any less important or valuable to this debate than yours.
Schools can teach civics. They can provide oppurtunities for people to volunteer and serve their communities. But the moment they require these service oppurtunities as a condition of passing or graduation, it is no longer service.
Encourage, provide oppurtunities, train organizations how to handle unskilled volunteers effectively. These are good and effective things.
Why stop at making Children be "good citizens", why not force adults to do this too? 50 hours of service per year shouldn't be too much to ask for the privledge of having a driver's license is it?
We don't force children to do things because it's good for us (except for the limited case of parents, who get more leeway on this than society in general).
I have a lot more great ideas to make you all Much Better People. Note to Self: Call Obama to Schedule Meeting.
All foreign problems can be blamed on a sinister cabal of Nazis Muslims and Communists.
All economic problems can be blamed on a ominous covenant between the socialists the Fed and regulators.
Legal problems are the ACLU-Trial lawyers consortium.
This problem doesn’t exactly fall in any category. But have no fear! I won’t allow anyone to think the Dems think this is good policy!
it’s gotta be some plot by a sinister cabal of the unions, Cuba and Obamamaniacs to enslave us all!
"That you cannot see the difference between teaching someone to read and calculate – and requiring them to participate in certain activities for their 'personal growth; is maddening." Look, I'm not saying theres alot of merit to your argument, I'm just saying its pretty tricky figuring out what school should (and can) teach. The issue (to me) isn't the likelihood that most people won't use the knowledge later in life- many subjects aren't used by most people later in life, yet seem are still of benefit to people in helping them choose how to live their life. The issue is whether community service is a valuable experience that some people are frequently not exposed to (outside of school). I obviously don't have an unbiased viewpoint here, as I personally found it to be quite rewarding. I don't see why you find it maddening, there's a whole lot more then reading and calculating that is necessary for children to learn to live satisfying and fulfilling lives- just because you found many of these other things at home doesn't mean all others do as well.
Are these citizens of the "Starship Troopers" mold?
One can dream.
What I find maddening is your support for forced 'goodness' and self improvement. Choose for yourself where you want self improvement. Leave me and mine alone.
And, I say again, just because some children have parents who would neglect their best interest is not an argument for the State to come in and take control of the lives of all children. I suspect that the Government, support by busybodies, really wants to take as much control of all our lives as they can and point to the children of neglectful parents as a pretext.
WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!??!11112two
I am also reminded of Stalinist Russia and of every other tinpot dictator that ever destroyed the freedom of his won land.
I am thinking that these proposals may be unconstitutional and I am sure that this is nothing like what the Founders had in mind when they crafted the limitations on the Executive.
The funny thing is (to me anyways), is that you're describing any and all grade school education. What's the distinction between forcing a kid to learn how to use a bunson burner and forcing a kid to learn about community service? If you're so concerned about your kid doing mandatory community service at a public school, may I suggest sending him to a private school (oh wait... most of them have even more severe public service requirements- and yet shockingly many parents are not just okay with this, but they actually pay money!!!).
"[J]ust because some children have parents who would neglect their best interest is not an argument for the State to come in and take control of the lives of all children." Once again, this is what grade school education already is, it forces all families to educate their children (you can homeschool your kids, but you must adhere to state imposed standards). Look, I'm open to debate about whether there are good reasons to resist state control here, but saying this isn't even an argument for state control is a non-starter to me.
I'm glad vassil petrov mentioned Hitler, because everyone knows it's a short, slippery slope from enforcing civic duty to invading countries and targeting sending [sic] people to concentration camps.
A short, slippery slope indeed. A substantial number of registered Democrats will tell you that Chimpy McHitler invaded two countries for no good reason (other than to steal their oil, of course) and is already targeting people for concentration camps -- in fact. the U.S. has already set up internment camps. Many of these same people will also tell you that Chimpy McHitler ordered the events of 9/11, or at least knew all about them in advance and permitted them to happen.
So Sarcastro seems to me to be in agreement with Mr. Lindgren that the Obama Jugend would be a Bad Thing. Those mandatory volunteer brigades would seem to be the last step down the slippery slope to tyranny.
Michelle Obama said (I paraphrase because I'm just too lazy to look it up) "Obama will not let you go back to your usual complacent, uninvolved lives..."
We in America have the right to live complacent and uninvolved lives. Even our children. Each of us has the right to pursue happiness in the way WE define it. Not the way some Government official (or even you) sees it.
I, like you, would recommend and encourge everyone to look for ways to contribute to his or her community and world. It really is good for the person - and for the community. However, I would not, cannot, support requiring people to volunteer.
It should be Their Choice. Not Obamas. And not yours.
No, you're not. Have your read your own comments?
Your comments can be summed up as: It good for the kids, and since we already require other things such as learning to read, there is no reason not to require this as well.
Adam J - Forcing a kid to perform 50 hours per year of involuntary servitude is simply "learning about community service"?
BYW, my child is in private school, and there is no mandated community service. Its encouraged (and rewarded) but not required. And that is the way is should be.
That's free association. A private school can place the requirements on graduation that it wishes. Students can attend or not.
Your biggest problem is the massive arrogance: that you know better how to raise someone else's kids than they do.
Is public service good for my kids? It could well be. Or maybe not. Maybe my kids are working extra jobs just so the family can make ends meet. Maybe we really don't have time. Maybe we don't like any of the approved organizations and don't want to support them.
Why not use all your logic to make church attendance compulsory? (Oh, you can try to bring up the First Amendment, but it's already well established by the paternalists that when it's for the children we throw the Constitution out the window.)
Let's go through the checklist.
Get plenty of anecdotes of people telling you how church enriched their lives growing up. √ Even if they didn't want to go. √
And people talking about how it exposes them to stuff in the world. √
Talk about how some private schools actually require it already, so it must be A-OK for public schools to require it. √
Education is about so much more than books! √
IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN! √√√√√√
That's it! Mandatory church attendance, here we come!
Virginian- Involuntary servitude? Gimme a break. What do you think they're gonna do if a kid refuses... break out the whips? Not to mention you don't have to send your kids to public school if you don't want to. On the other hand, you have a fair point about whether 50 hours is necessary for a child to learn the rewards of community service- at some point it obviously goes past learning and becomes simply work.
One hurdle that Mr. Obama’s plan must vault is the U.S. Constitution, which limits the federal government to enumerated powers. Lacking the power to mandate universal community service directly, Mr. Obama candidly discloses his strategy: making federal funds contingent on schools having service programs that meet federal standards.
Suppose President Obama thought it would be a wonderful thing if everyone attended church ... but of course it would not be constitutional to require citizens to do so. But what if that, to further this end, Congress passed a law that taxpayers could reduce their income tax by 50 percent if they attended church? Or what if Congress passed a law to withhold federal funding from school systems whose students did not attend church? Would either of those be constitutional?
I'm not being facetious. To me it's obvious that Congress does not, and should not, have the power to make wither of those things happen. So how is it that Congress supposedly does have the power to make federal funds contingent on schools having service programs that amount to involuntary servitude by their students?
I suggest they volunteer their own children for double or triple involvement and get double or triple the benefit.
Information about those who don't volunteer should be kept a database. Then, depending upon priorities, the state can devise a different means to correct their defects.
Look at Suzy's examples.
Kids planting gardens that die as soon as the school year ends and the kids stop coming around. School computers used to produce web pages that no one will look at.
"Community service" is also terribly elitest. Its nice that the bright, motivated kids at private schools and other middle class schools do this "service" that helps on the college application.
What about working class and poor kids? They barely get an education now as it is and their lives are a struggle. Wasting their time and their families time at getting them to silly projects is just upper middle calss disregard for the needs of the lesser classes.
Why not use all your logic to make church attendance compulsory? (Oh, you can try to bring up the First Amendment, but it's already well established by the paternalists that when it's for the children we throw the Constitution out the window.) [...]
That's it! Mandatory church attendance, here we come!
There was no collusion between us in proposing this. I guess it's the wave of the future!
Exactly. I don't have a problem with schools encouraging community service
Regular feature on the difference students are making in the community in the school newspaper
Special shirts for volunteers
An awards ceremony to recognize kids that go above and beyond to truly be of service
Special page in the year book dedicated to people with lots of service hours
A special day in the spring for Seniors to go do a community service project just before graduation
The list of ways to recognize and encourage service are too numerous to list.
But to tie service to grades or graduation belittles what service is supposed to be about.
To tie school funding to the amount of service that students do is morally reprehensible.
As I understand it, schools that already require this make it a graduation requirement. That's a pretty draconian punishment, and really offers no reasonable choice but to comply. Maybe BO does not intend such a requirement, but there will obviously need to be some "stick" if there is any hope of this becoming "universal."
Yes, I can probably afford to (and probably will) send my daughter to private school. But many, many people do not have that choice.
I suppose you would prefer if I just keep my wallet open and my mouth shut, keep sending my taxes in (like I have a choice) and not complain about any hare-brained scheme the nanny-statists come up with to further f#$% up public education in this country.
"And it makes me wonder if it ever really existed in the past."
A long time ago in days but dimly remembered, the Federal Government was limited in what it could do by something called a Constitution. Then the courts of the land began to find strange new powers in the Constitution. Some of the people cheered and some fought back and thus it has been every since.
Frankly, I think what goes into a school curriculum probably shouldn't always be determined on a national level, particularly on an issue like this. I also feel any program this divisive should probably have an "opt out". But the discussion here apparently isn't whether mandatory community service good intervention or bad, the discussion "is state intervention bad". I'm just saying not necessarily, and everyone is flipping out.
LIly- Yes, I am open, however your comments consist of "we should resist state control because its state control". That doesn't make sense to me, what does make sense is arguing that its better learned outside of the classroom, that it can't be administered effectively by a school, that community service can't be taught by coercion, etc. etc. You're argument can be summed up as "state coercion bad". Considering how so alot of state coercion (most criminal and civil law for example) is actually quite good for society, I think that's a pathetic argument.
No, I think that LIly's argument can more fairly be stated as: "State coercion is bad, but when the alternative is worse then state coercion is justified; state coercion is bad and unjustified it is not necessary to prevent something worse." See how criminal and civil law fit into the picture?
You supposed justification usually devolves into: "What is not compulsory is forbidden; what is not forbidden is compulsory."
This is, of course, an extreme... but it is a slippery slope where Mr. Obama walks.
He can't give my ass a big enough, sloppy enough kiss to ever get control over my children. I will raise them well, I will raise them to mistrust socialism.
What are the benefits? This gets into a few replies to objections raised above:
#1 is that nobody has provided evidence to contradict the research showing that students who participate in service learning are more likely to graduate, attend college, and earn better grades. This reinforces my point that service learning is learning: it's valuable because it's about academic improvement, not just "feeling good".
#2 is that thousands of applicants are indeed turned away from programs like Americorps, YouthBuild, Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Thousands are matched up with volunteer opportunites through the web or local agencies, but it's a somewhat disorganized patchwork right now. I don't see the downside of making this process easier and more effective, apart from the fact that some people believe govt. has no business doing anything of the sort. Fine, then, you oppose all of the above programs, so why debate the details at all?
#3 is a similar point: if you oppose service requirements as some kind of unjust enslavement, then you ought to have a problem with most of what goes on in school. Teachers and school systems get to make all kinds of tyrannical decisions about how students might best learn various concepts. They also choose the content of what should be learned. Someone has decided, hopefully based on good evidence, that children learn better and pay attention in class better when they have physical activity. They also decided that knowledge about the body and health that could be conveyed here is important. Therefore, we have phys ed classes. Is this as important as learning to read or add? Probably not. But is it otherwise useful and effective? The best evidence says yes. Same thing with service learning.
The gardens I mentioned are alive and thriving all year. The web pages are used by students and parents at the school. These are indeed useful projects, and most importantly, info was learned and retained by students who took responsibility. I'm scratching my head over the suggestion that students could just do a "school project" or a "word problem" and accomplish the same goal. What do you think a service project is? It's exactly that, except that instead of being another silly, meaningless story problem, it's real and the effects can be witnessed. Should all learning be service learning? Of course not. Most is going to be presented in other ways, but this is a great way to reinforce and help retain skills and info. If you want to argue that govt. shouldn't do this, ok with me, but then you're basically arguing that govt. shouldn't get involved in education at all, or should be tied only to certain methods even if they're less effective.
First, it allows what will certainly be heavy-duty Liberal/Leftist indoctrination [like weekly re-runs of An Inconvenient Truth, and Jennifer Has Two Daddies], with no dissenting point of view allowed. Karl Marx, but never Adam Smith. One Party will control all indoctrination. And they have made it crystal clear that power, control and hugely increased taxes -- not doing good -- are their real objectives.
Second, by forcibly rounding up our eleven and twelve year old kids, it does not deprive unions of possible dues-payers. The kids will have to go back to school; they can not take union jobs at their age.
Remember that numerous Democrat politicians, like Charles Rangel among others, regularly propose re-instituting the draft. That is exactly the same mind-set of Big Government libs. Democrats want total control of the lives of our country's youth. This election will determine whether Americans think that is the right road to go down, or not. From the comments here, most folks don't like it.
Finally, just imagine the apoplectic red-faced shouting and arm-waving by the liberals if John McCain had proposed the same thing that the Dem's empty suit is proposing for our eleven and twelve year old kids.
/snark off
None of those programs are mandatory.
Or those of us who believe that paying a fair wage and earning a living by performing good work are morally good things? That it is equally as wrong to force someone to do community service as it is to force someone else to do your homework?
I've despised it all my life - I dropped out of the national honor society in junior high school (and stayed out through high school) because it required volunteerism. My law school was one of the "enlightened" early adopters of a mandatory pro bono requirement. I completed that with a heavy heart and in a very minimal fashion. In both cases, the vast majority of the pre-approved volunteer opportunities were influenced by left-wing values.
Volunteering is great, and the option should be available to everyone. But involuntary servitude is bad at all levels, and becomes terrifying when the government gets involved as BO is planning.
If these are learning activities, don't call it "service". It's not service if it is mandatory. It's work.
Our schools are having trouble teaching basic reading, writing, arithmetic, science and history. I feel these are critical core subjects. Anything that requires students to lose focus on these topics is detrimental to their future.
If these outside projects are so beneficial to learning these core competencies, then school districts will adopt them without the Federal Government mandating them.
Frankly, the reality is this proposal is based on a desire to force people to behave in a manner that some people label as "good". It is about Power and Control
While I personally believe that service is good, forcing it on people doesn't make them good. The only way to make people be good, is for them to choose good.
Sounds like some kind of a blog or something!
If the work is as beneficial (to the proposed recipients) as you claim, why not pay people to do it?
If it is beneficial to the doer, why does it matter if there is service involved or not? For example, if speaking French is a great way to learn it, why not simply mandate 50 hours of extra-curricular learning, rather than limiting it to "service"?
For all - would prostitution count?
One of the lowest moments of the Reagan years as was some do-goodism to appeal; to the base, enforced by the power of the purse. This do-goodism is currently in the news, as many college presidents are now professing that the mandatory national drinking laws have actually contributed to binge drinking and the growth of a drunken hook-up culture. It only took them 25 years to recognize it.
Yes, I am referring to my own lame senator’s creative linking of federal highway funds, raised off gas purchases, to following her social purposes. It was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now.
It is a poorly recognized corollary to the truism “The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy” that “The Power to Fund is the Power to Destroy”. Close watchers have seen it again and again if they watch the groups funded by the United Way. Grassroots community organizations start out funded by and supported by their community. They get a little money from the United Way. Staff start preparing next year’s budget proposal to the United Way earlier and earlier, and become non-responsiveness to its community.
At last, the United Way’s funding direction changes, and the organization is left without fund and without the skills to get them, like a wild animal raised in the zoo and suddenly set free. Few organizations survive this transition.
What happens to the non-approved organization, when its volunteers are siphoned off into approved make-work? What happens to the pride of participation, when your classmates start to sneer that you are doubly duped? And what happens to the organization that relies on the approved list at the local middle school, only to be dropped one day?
The point of school is indeed to make citizens. This plan raises subjects. Citizens are sovereign, subjects are not.
The back-and-forth biblical quotations leave out the clearest summary; Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. It does not say render unto God what is Caesar’s – nor does it say render unto Caesar that which is God’s. I do not require citizens to have the same concept of god as I have, or that they have any at all. I do wish that those who worship the State would offer me the same courtesy.
Adam, and Suzy – this last applies to you.
And I'm sure Israel will be interested that all its people are subjects, not citizens!
Also, we shouldn't give the government any power, because government might abuse it, like with that hateful United Way.
There is very little Obama can do as president to implement this. HS graduation requirements are set by the respective states, not the federal government. K-12 public education is funded mostly on the state and local level. Very little federal money goes into K-12 education. No money, no leverage.
The feds have limited options in regulated university entrance requirements. The only thing the feds could do is to require that all students applying for federal=backed student loans must have X amount of public service. It may be that the feds will require that universities require public service as entrance criteria in order to get federal funding for R&D. However, I think this unlikely. I do not think that congress will side with Obama and make federally funded R&D monies hostage to Obama's public service agenda.
These same comments are applicable to McCain as well.
More social benefit involved than planting gardens.
Thanks for the compliment.
The problem with saying that, "It is worth a serious effort to try" is that these programs tend to go forever, whether they are successful or not, and well beyond their original scope.
No Child Left Behind is pretty-much universally hated, but it isn't going to be canceled any time soon. Price supports, energy subsidies--they last forever. So, "give it a serious effort" means, in practice anyway, "Lets generate yet another federal program that will go on forever, whether or not it is effective."
Even assuming the benefits you mention (which I doubt, but others are handling that angle), I think the major resources this would require are better spent on more basic life-skills.
Finally, one more story. I am an Eagle Scout, but I was more or less forced by my parents to get it (oh the fights!), and I did all the service necessary to get it. Today I am reasonably civic minded, but I am not proud at all of an honor I was forced to get. I don't think of it fondly at all. For many people forced service is going to be like that.
(No disrespect to the true Eagle Scouts here--I probably don't count as a real Eagle, even though I have the certificate, as my attitude was all wrong. But that's the point, really.)
So was the drinking age.
I know the feds have less economic leverage over K-12 than over roads, but that might change. Funding schools based on local real estate values creates big differences in money spent per student. Federal tax money could be used to equalize what each district can spend.
Mike G- If that was Lily's point then I agree. That is the proper limitation of government. Of course there's some question about how much we should defer to the government in deciding when the alternative to coercion is worse. We certainly defer in alot of cases. Are we as citizens the experts in determining whether our kids should do community service, should we leave it to our kids, does the government have expertise to know better? Maybe, maybe not. Does the government really have the best idea of how to go about the job of education, what should it rely on families to teach, what about the families that don't teach?
And I don't really understand what "What is not compulsory is forbidden; what is not forbidden is compulsory." If your trying to say my logic is circular, you're gonna have to elaborate and explain why. I cant see where I said anything of the sort.
Toby- Do you find yourself explaining things multiple times? Coherence really doesn't seem to be your strong suit.
Service-learning, done properly, teaches reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history, and more. It's a teaching method--it's not volunteering or community service.
Countless students have improved their science skills by learning how to perform useful tests in the classroom and monitoring water quality, testing fish DNA, investigating plant disease and advising community members on how to combat it. Students learn history and communication skills through investigating the lives of immigrants or a WWII-era POW camp in their community.
The key with service-learning is that the activities get tied directly to the curricular goals. And kids themselves have a voice in the projects that they decide to tackle.
Are most classroom teachers versed enough in the pedagogy to do it effectively? Probably not. But it can have powerful effects on academic outcomes and community engagement.
You seem to be saying that because I allow some State coercion of my child (such as requiring her to learn to read), then I cannot reasonably object to any other State coercion so long as the State determines it is beneficial for her.
Let me state here for the record that I reserve the right to object to any overreaching on the part of the State with the respect to myself or my child. (I would define required Volunteerism as a condition of graduation, or a good grade, as overreaching)
Adam, all good ideas do not make good law.
I am very happy you benefited from community service. Now leave my child alone.
BYW, you suggest you are open to discussion about whether this is overreaching (as I call it). Many on this board have made good arguments against Obama’s plan. Do you find any of them at all persuading?
This is true. However, it limits the feds ability to intervene to the poorer school districts. The percentage of school district money that comes from the feds is around 10%. All Obama could do is funnel more fed money to the poorer school districts.
I just saw the platform on Obama's website. He is proposing a $4,000 per year educational tax credit for parents whose kids do community service work. This, of course, means that the parents who can afford to send their kids to college without need of this credit will simply disregard it. The middle or lower middle income families who cannot will not.
Also, what counts as public service? Spending a 100 hours on your eagle scout project? Working for the Salvation Army? These things are relatively non-controversial. I spent way more than 100 hours on my eagle scout project (it took most of a summer, but it was a large project) and I spent at least 100 hours working on my friends' projects.
The controversy is if the feds reject these existing community organizations and insist that the kids enroll in some kind of nationwide thing where they have to work in places far from their homes (i.e. kids from X, Iowa having to do community service work in Chicago's south side). It is my prediction that this will never happen. All it takes is for one suburban kid to get knifed while doing mandatory community service work in the hood and the political firestorm and lawsuits will end any such a program immediately.
National service has been bandied about by the dems since Clinton's 1992 campaign.
Oh good grief what "expertise" is needed? We have church and other faith-based groups, boy/girl scouts, 4-H, honor societies, Junior America, etc that already have American youth involved in community activities. This is an example of an overbearing, unnecessary, over-bloated requirement that's not needed in the least.
I left the grocery store earlier and saw a car in the lot with the (requisite?) dozen left wing stickers with the obligatory "Obama" (hope, change, whatever) NEXT to a sticker that said something about "blind faith in American government." What on earth is this?
I was interested to see one person above mention law school "pro bono" work as a negative example of service learning. Don't many law schools have such clinics, perhaps civil or criminal? Is it not a very useful way to practice skills, on real-life cases? I've never done it so I honestly don't know, I'm asking. Do students learn any practically useful skills by participating in such clinics, or is it purely a feel-good enterprise that is less effective than further traditional classroom education would be?
Yo black folks! No one gives a fig about skin color any more? This has been true since about 1985, at latest. What's holding you back now is the concept of "cool." See, cool feels good but doesn't cut any ice in the world at large. So the keys to success are using standard English, using a belt to keep your pants up, and striving. When you get in the game and play by the same rules as everyone else, you'll miraculously notice that you're getting respect.
Go ahead, editors, remove this post.
I'm appalled at the number of people who are so willing to close their eyes and accept, nay, even embrace this approach.
There have been many compelling analogies about forcing the elderly, or medicare patients into involuntary "volunteerism". It all boils down to forcing a population segment (as powerless as possible)to do something that "someone in Government" thinks is a "greater good". Children seem particularly vulnerable when the concept comes couched in terms of "education".
The rationale that some kids might benefit from this as a justification just blows my mind. I'm sure most adults would benefit with some physical exercise and weight loss, but I don't think we'd want to be put to forced labor and starvation diet to achieve it. But hey, I'm sure there are some chain gangs out there you can volunteer for.
If most kids are as contrary as mine, I think this will actually backfire, in terms of teaching "connections to the community" and whatever other psychobabble terminology you want to use. Kids are pretty good at cutting through the BS and figuring out when they're being used.
I'm adding this to my list of reasons to home school my children. I have a higher opinion of what my childrens time is worth than this. And their time surely isn't a free resource available on demand to anyone outside my family.
Lots of bar associations suggest pro bono work. Suggest, not mandate. And when one is using it as a training exercise for a chosen profession, it is quite different than what I expect some 7th grader is going to be put to work doing. My expectation is that this will be a labor pool for every charitable group who has a dirty or tedious job to do ... like sorting used clothes for the Salvation Army or Good Will, or sorting recycling. Not exactly the kinds of work I want my children doing for a bunch of strangers. Nor the kind of work that prepares them to do anything that I would have them aspire to doing for a profession.
So I think it is horribly inappropriate analogy.
However I do think there's probably legitimate reasons to dispute mandatory service. It is a bit elitist, can we really be sure the state knows better then the parent in this case? I also think a program like this should allow the parents the opportunity to opt the kids out of the program. Opt outs aren't coercion, you have a choice to get your kid outta the program if you want, but they use inertia to insure most kids stay in the program that will probably be beneficial to them.
You may bring a toothbrush and a change of underwear. Our Lord and Messiah has generously agreed to provide a soap bar for you at the disinfectant shower.
Suzy would surely be a public nuisance, wouldn't she.
IMO, any kid who doesn't want to do this stuff isn't already doing it. And to force him will, as an earlier poster suggested, provide ample opportunities for sabotage, which would arguably be morally justified.
If you think volunteering is a good idea, volunteer and keep your hands off other people's kids.
You should recall that NCLB is not mandatory. Only thing is, you get money if you do it and not if you don't. So it's mandatory in effect. Matters not how many teachers don't like it, how many parents have been brainwashed into thinking it's a bad idea, it's here to stay. So presuming the schools are going to pass up the incentive money is inhumanly stupid. No matter what kind of sticks they're going to have to purchase to whip the recalcitrant with.
This is going to be in the hands of people who put a kid in jail because they forgot to change the time on their answering machine. And forced pelvic exams on middle school girls despite their pleadings. Who have strong reasons not to let Christians come close to exercising their religion, but will put a week's pretending to be Muslims into the curriculum. I mean, of all the people in the nation to be supervising this, you're looking to school administrators??? Are you insane?
I believe that a reasonable person would infer from your comments that you believe that since we already allow he State to control our children on some levels - academic - that is not reasonable to object to the State's mandate for other virtuous activities.
Your Words:
To address your earlie commment: I do believe that “State coercion is bad”. Absolutely. But some minimum level of coercion is necessary for society to function. A very minimum level. That is why the State should meet a VERY high standard before it is allowed to intrude and coerce and control. “Because it will help the children grow and become better people and better citizens” comes no where near that minimum level in my opinion.
Community Service is good and virtuous. My 11 year old already contributes. She asked to do so. I never told her she had to. She would have no trouble meeting Obama’s requirements on her own. But I have a strong, philosophical objection to mandatory or coerced community service. It’s not the American way. Its not the America that I knew.
If Obama decides to advance other policy goals by picking winners and losers in his mandatory service scheme, maybe Act-Up and PETA can at least take over BSA's nationwide Scouting for Food program after the Scouts are gone? [naw, not enough tofu available to fill the food banks].
Thanks for the laugh of the day!
I once saw on the bumper of the BMW 500 Series driving in LA: "Live Simply that others may Simply Live".
Serving on my school district Board of Education, parents and teachers (most) best know the needs of children and what they need to succeed while in school. When children master math, science, ELA, history and the like, when children do not need the benefit of Academic Intervention Services or Reading Recovery services, then we can talk about volunteer service performed by children. There needs to be a sense of priority to what children do with their time.
Until then, from my perspective it's inappropriate for the Federal government to mandate such service. I want our students to excel at 1) Academics (whether it be traditional school or Vo-Tech) and 2) Extracurricular activities - both of these help prepare students for life after high school. The decision to mandate community service needs to be data-driven, and I'm not sure that data exists.
For our school district, I believe that a majority of the Board of Education would vote to forgo federal funds if such aid were based on a requirement for community service. If community service is part of a student's curriculum, fine. But it will be a decision made at the local level and by the people most knowledgeable about the students in question.
[...]
"it’s gotta be some plot by a sinister cabal of the unions, Cuba and Obamamaniacs to enslave us all!" Sarcastro
You should, at least on occasion, attempt some more subtle forms of irony. As to not being confused and seeing things in black and white, your own low disdain for most anything that fails to conform to your view of the world is itself a source of irony. Unintentional and unconscious, but bemusingly ironic.
The teachers ["If you can read this, thank a teacher"] should be forced to 'volunteer' their time after school, just to show the kids how this mandating thingy works. The kids need role models to see how forced volunteering operates, right?
The Democrats can implement Obama's new plan for the children.
Feral Boy would be cool for a post or two. But after a while, "Grunt, grunt, grunt!" would get old, too.
I think you're correct about the benefits of service learning. I also think the best way to preserve and expand those benefits is to allow service learning programs to continue developing organically instead of getting the (already overburdened and frequently clumsy at best) state more involved than it already is. Reducing taxes/spending/regulation would free up more resources for citizens and communities to invest more heavily in these, and other, laudable programs.
I hope you're not feeling overwhelmed. Ideas like this tend to stir up the libertarian hornet's nest.
Law school clinics are not volunteer work. They are:
1. graded; and
2. for credit,
both of which distinguish them from that which is done solely out of the goodness of one's heart. If you take a clinic, that's one less tax or family law class that needs to be taken.
That gets back to my earlier point about the fact that all learning is not necessarily in the pursuit of service. When I was an engineering student, I interned, but was compensated quite well for my time. I learned a TON - some of which was because they weren't paying me to wash glassware (which they could well do if someone is there for free). The fact that I drew a salary meant that they had to give me work that was worthy of that salary, rather than have me slump around the lab.
Thanks for the info. Kurtz's Fox comments were probably somewhat similar; he gave some reasons for his speculation, though they were far from conclusive: It was a very small board at first (3 members) and Ayers was at the meetings acting as sort of an ex officio member, since he was the primary founder. I remember more what I thought than what he said: he has evidence of more contacts but no direct evidence that Ayers had a role in Obama's hiring.
Until your post, I had no idea that the speech so often quoted was from UCLA. She was talking about the program for college students.
The way to deal with this is to spam all of the conservative websites and to make a youtube video about this issue. The letter and video should be targeted to parents and prospective parents. The gist of it should be that Obama has plans for your kids and that these plans may not be in your best or your kids best interests.
I would highlight the possibility that Obama's community service ideas does not mean that the kids would work for local charities that operate in their neighborhoods and towns. Rather, Obama's plan is to create a parallel civilian equivalent to the military where kids may be drafted into and possibly shipped to other regions of the country to do "community service" work.
Highlight the potential danger in this (e.g. kids from small town Iowa possibly having to do "community service" work in Chicago's south side, etc.) to their kids. I would also highlight the urban hiphop atmosphere that surrounds Obama and his campaign and how he wants to introduce this to YOUR kids.
Even if Obama has no such plans for such a parallel organization, the fear that can be generated in the minds of millions of voters over this issue could be highly damaging to Obama's campaign.
service learning does sound more attractive but that does not change what it is, government mandated busy work.
"service learning does sound more attractive but that does not change what it is, government mandated busy work."
No, service learning already exists and already works and will continue to if not crushed by the love of the Lenny State.
Libertarians could make a concrete contribution on the local level by expanding the definition of "service" in "service learning" to better include the private sector and for-profit activity.
Mike G,You say that like it's a bad thing! Wouldn't you know, though--Bush didn't manage to pull this part off, either.
No. It's to teach kids. If it were to create citizens, we'd be justified in keeping foreign kids out of our schools, wouldn't we? I mean, what's "the point"?
Let's get started! YOU go learn to play banjo, while I go take a nap in front of the TV!
We'll get this plan rollin' yet!
I think the problem is that you're reality-challenged. If Obama had said the words that McCain said (that I cited), certain people would have used that as an excuse to label Obama as a Marxist. And the distinction you raised about "voluntary" or not would not have amounted to a hill of beans.