<p>America</a> Serves | Change.gov </p>
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<p>Did he mention income limits? Has that been increased above $120,000 per year?</p>
<p>Wonder how is he going to pay for it.</p>
<p>This will be Obama's first proposal with which I intensely disagree. I see two significant issues:</p>
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<li><p>We're already in a muck financially. How are we going to pay for this?</p></li>
<li><p>Doesn't this go against the spirit of community service? Volunteer work is a great thing to do precisely because it requires no pay: the individual thinks the cause is so great that he is willing to contribute his own time on its behalf without compensation. Perhaps Obama believes that this will provoke more community service after college, but I sincerely doubt that it will.</p></li>
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<p>I was required to do 85-ish hours of community service to graduate from my boarding school. The available places for which to work were causes which I didn't care about, so that it had more of a negative effect than a positive effect on me. Note that I'm a person who would be glad to lend a hand to a cause in which I sincerely believe.</p>
<p>I would also have to say I have some problems with this. Mostly I question if we can really find 50 hours of quality CS work for all kids in grades 6-12. I work in a middle school in a small community. Our entire district is 1600 students. My middle school has 385 students in grades 6-8. I don't think I could really find 15,000 hours of work that our kids could do let alone find enough adults to organize it and supervise the kids. It is nice in theory to think that every kid could do an hour of community service every week, but I am not sure the the opportunities are really out there for that to happen.</p>
<p>This sounds like an idea that's on the right track, with the details to be fleshed out later (e.g. how will it mesh with other community service requirements that may exist with school districts, Boy/Girl Scouts, etc.)</p>
<p>I think it's correct that it would be difficult to find "quality experiences" for all the students, but let's look at this from another angle, which President-elect Obama probably has. Not all the work that needs to be done in this country is fun or interesting, but it needs to be done and YES WE CAN. I don't volunteer my time to clean up our local dog park because it's fun. The friendship is good but the work is hard and dirty, but needs to be done. Last night, I spent four straight hours with no break manning a soda fountain at the homecoming game, the help support the sports program. Fun and interesting? No, not really. But the adults there tried to set a festive atmosphere and we knew we were doing it for a good cause. My S sees me doing these kinds of volunteer activities, along with the more fun and interesting ones, and he knows why I do it.</p>
<p>As I said on the other thread, I'm opposed to this as a requirement, because kids who have to work to pay the bills don't have the luxury of community service.</p>
<p>When Obama says "all college students" then that should mean regardless of parental income levels. If not, it is just another subsidy for lower income students. My D in college already volunteers through organizations on campus which I hope would qualify. My other 2 D's in High School also volunteer as it allows in their schedule. I hate the idea of forced volunteering, you lose what volunteering is all about. can you image the extra burden put on High schools trying to keep track of say 1000 kids doing 50 hours of community service.</p>
<p>Then there is the whole "who is going to pay for this".</p>
<p>Gymmom2007</p>
<p>This is not a new proposal; he's been saying this throughout his campaign.</p>
<p>In addition to the other points mentioned, don't forget that colleges will now discount/ignore this "volunteer" service in admissions.</p>
<p>How much of such a program could be paid for would be by cleaning up the massive over billings of the USDOE by various corporations. It has been a routine practice for these companies to over bill millions and when these scandals hit the specialist press the whole situation is quickly buried within the USDOE. </p>
<p>From a personal perspective I'd rather see these funds go to students and communities than to yet another golf course for a corrupt CEO, or to yet more funding for morally co-opted officials within the USDOE. Or for that matter past cash infusions for liquidity or gods help us the proposed 600 billion dollar bailout for these same companies, whose billions in questionable profits notwithstanding somehow cannot ensure their own stability. </p>
<p>Concerning community service its not too hard to integrate that into existing curriculum as part of a service learning component. Therefore such programs are not discriminatory to either poor or rich students as these programs are integrated into a well designed curriculum. The caveat for those designing such programs or implementing them into courses is that it needs to be relevant to a students program of study. Having students picking up roadside trash is of no value in learning unless such activities can be linked to the curriculum. It's when these initiatives are applied with poor planning that the problems arise. </p>
<p>And the president elect is scarcely unique in the call for such programs. Many of the elite schools have advocated such programs for some of the same reasons as Obama and some reasons very different than Obama's rationale. The elite schools have become very concerned with the disturbing development of moral narcissism amongst their graduates. Given the recent debacles in the financial sector perhaps the Ivy's are correct to be very concerned. The people running these corporations (who are often a product of these schools) have felt no obligation beyond their own enrichment, and as a result they've almost brought down an entire economy. </p>
<p>Basically because of these pragmatic and moral concerns there will be an increased presence of service learning at the better schools, hopefully it will have the intended effect.</p>
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Having students picking up roadside trash is of no value in learning unless such activities can be linked to the curriculum.
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<p>I disagree. No volunteer service is related to school curriculum. Servicing a homeless sheltering center has nothing to do with school curriculum. The goal of volunteering is to gain life experience and to find a meaning in life.</p>
<p>Actually I'll offer another view...it's really unfortunate that our school curricula are so wedded to academic achievement that they DO NOT have anything in them that might relate to community service. Sometimes these community service placements are life changing experiences and help students understand what life is about for others unlike themselves. To me, that has great value. Our high school has a community service requirement for seniors, and it has nothing to do with the curriculum...because sadly, the curriculum is all about academics.</p>
<p>$40 an hour for community service? From an economics perspective, it just provides an opportunity for colleges to raise their prices by $4,000 a year.</p>
<p>I'd rather see publicly available databases of volunteer opportunities by city or town.</p>
<p>As far as picking up roadside trash goes, this can be a pretty dangerous undertaking.</p>
<p>On my daily drive, I frequently see inmates doing this work - they are closely followed by a van with appropriate signaling equipment so that drivers don't hit the workers. What I'd rather have for volunteer workers are sitting by the road and writing down the license plate numbers that toss roadside trash out their windows.</p>
<p>I think US corporations and farmers should use the cheap and huge source of labor from HS and college students instead of shifting jobs oversea or using illegal cheap immigrants. Schools should scrape meaningless paper volunteer services and require students to perform actual labor work.</p>
<p>Servicing a homeless shelter could be linked to sociology, nursing, nutrition, and even such as accounting & marketing if it is executed properly. </p>
<p>Gaining life experience outside the curriculum should be done outside the curriculum. If academe is going to charge students tuition for programs in which service learning is a component it better relate to the curriculum if student,family support, and state support is going to be sustained. In part this is because academe has had a bad habit of claiming virtues (such as life experience, and lifelong learning) which are not exactly defensible from either a pragmatic assessment or curricular perspective. So if colleges are going to be receiving federal money to implement programs of these types, perhaps its best expected that these be curriculum defensible. Otherwise all they'll use the new money for is more warm fuzzy-isms and more trophy buildings. </p>
<p>And one of the issues in establishing these proposed programs will be the information in databases such as the one BC Eagle had mentioned. Otherwise its too easy for such community service learning initiatives to denigrate into activities irrelevant or insulting to the communities being served, or redirected into some entities profit making schemes.</p>
<p>My guess is that there would be problems with child labor laws.</p>
<p>I started working at 11 and have been working since but it was easy to do back then. My guess is that there would be more restrictions today. Kids can get around that sort of thing in some cities where their parents or relatives have their own businesses.</p>
<p>I do see the problem with labor laws. But I think Congress can change the laws. There should be collective effort to provide structures to use students labor. For example, a farmer can have a bus to pick up students from local schools to the fields after school or on the weekends.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Servicing a homeless shelter could be linked to sociology, nursing, nutrition, and even such as accounting & marketing if it is executed properly>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>And your high school offers courses in sociology (required course??), nursing, nutrition, accounting and marketing? I guess I didn't make myself clear...I think in schools (high school and below), the emphasis is on academics...not on these other things...and I think there SHOULD be some emphasis on doing something for the community.</p>
<p>Going through the history of child labor laws and abuses would be a good idea. There are good reasons for child labor laws. When you have a good employer that has a safe work environment for the child, then it isn't a problem.</p>
<p>Your farmer with the bus could be using pesticides that are particularly harmful to kids.</p>
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Your farmer with the bus could be using pesticides that are particularly harmful to kids.
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<p>That's true. But it could not be more harmful than volunteering in AIDS centers in Africa, in areas with deadly mosquitoes and non-portable water in Asia... where there are no laws to protect the youth. Employers who want to hire youth must strictly obey the laws. Violation should be heavily punished.</p>