July 5, 2006
Pushing for a Public Service Academy
Last month, Inside Higher Ed had a story you might have missed about a local effort to establish a U.S. Public Service Academy. Two veterans of Teach for America, Shawn Raymond and Chris Myers Asch, have put together a proposal for an elite national university modeled after the U.S. Armed Services academies (West Point, Air Force Academy, etc.), but instead of military service, students would receive a federally-subsidized education in exchange for 5 years of civilian public service. You can download their entire proposal here.
The U.S. Public Service Academy will teach students to become competent leaders with the analytical skills, academic background, and practical experience they need to think critically and flexibly about the challenges of the twenty-first century. The goal of the academic curriculum will be to engage students in a rigorous program of study devoted to free and open inquiry, free expression of ideas, and the pursuit of truth. It will offer students a broad-based liberal arts education that emphasizes a commitment to public service but maintains the academic rigor and wide-ranging intellectual experience essential to leadership development.
It's certainly an intriguing idea, though obviously wildly idealistic — the mere thought of trying to get Congressional approval for such a grand scheme kind of makes us want to bake these guys cookies. And while it wouldn't necessarily preclude any progress, the proposal also reveals a bit of naivete by proposing Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a potential location. Last we checked, the Feds had reserved the doomed hospital for their own purposes.
|
There is a small blueprint for this sort of thing in the form of the Senior Executive Service academy in Charlotteville, VA, which trains senior civil servants in how to run public agencies. Obviously, what they are talking about is much larger in scope, but the idea of some sort of formal education for public servants is not totally alien to the federal government.
I think that an ROTC model, rather than a West Point model, would probably be a better solution. This way, the feds avoid all of the heavy lifting and the infrastructure costs.
While I'm willing to listen to better arguments than those I read in that article, for now I think this sounds like a bad idea.
It seems to me that it would be better for the government to spend that money on providing scholarships and fellowships, etc., rather than creating a new school. It would be more efficient and less expensive.
And frankly, I think the government and non-profits would be better off attracting more experienced workers. The central premise of this program is to create a whole bunch of 21-26 year old government and non-profit workers with little to no real world experience. Do we really need that many power-point presentations put together?
And I don't buy the comparison to the military academies. Being a military officer is not something you'd learn how to be going to a normal liberal arts school. But liberal arts schools are just fine at creating government or non-profit employees; they've been doing it for centuries.
I agree that there is no need to establishment new infrastructure. This type of arrangement could be done simply through a scholarship-for-civil-service type arrangement.
Of course, the truly radical idea would just be to impose a nationwide government services requirement.
another small blueprint is the Feinstein Institute for Public Service, part Providence College (that's in good 'ol Rhody). In essence, Raymond and Asch have thought up a public version of an 11 year-strong private institution. A degree in Public and Community service studies doesn't train its students to be servents, per se, but instead how to be community minded thinkers, leaders, and doers. The Feinstein Institute breeds all kinds of professionals: teachers, lawyers, think tankers, doctors, police, and yes, even the proverbial professional 'volunteers', willing to work for less. Fortunately, no year of service is due back to the PC or institute, but a commitment to the public good, however one may personally see it, is expected and respected.
DoJ has the National Institute of Justice for training federal prosecutors at the Univ. of S.C. in Columbia.
Maybe its just me, but.... Aside from the contracted time in public service, this idea sounds a bit like congressionally chartered, the number one university in America for graduates winning Presidential Management Scholarships in the federal government.
Ashley Mushnick
http://www.iceicemushie.net
http://www.ausg.org
I have a feeling that the government would claim they already provide a version of this service through programs like Americorps, VISTA, NCCC and the PeaceCorps. You dedicate a year of service working as a civil servant, receive a (meak) living allowance and get a tuition voucher for tuition when you complete your year.
AmeriCorps (VISTA and NCCC are AmeriCorps programs) do do this, but a stipend of 400-900 a month and a tuition award of $4725 are not neraly what they have in mind....its a great idea I think, but i doubt it would ever happen.
Reid I think misses the importance of this idea.
Universities have two roles, education and research.
On Education
Reid points out that currently, liberal arts grads take gov't jobs and proceed to fulfill their roles. He mistakenly draws the conclusion that this implies their education fulfills all the pedagogical needs of their future occupations. An educational environment where every class impacts policy issues relevant to the course material provides a very different perspective, one that would lead to more qualified public servants.
He also misses the reification point. The US Military Academies refute the assumption that military officers must be cretins and morons. It is well known that they are a challenge to enter, and that very fact rehabilitates the image of the resulting officer corps (even though the academy grads only make up a portion). Public Service has a far worse image than it did in the 60s, and making it seem like a sought-after set of occupations, rather than the last resort of many, would improve the talent pool that doesn't come through the USPSA. (Do remember that PS isn't just congressional staffers and State dept employees. The sad fellow holding a Dept of Ag liason job in Montana is a public servant too...) People flock to positions not because of salary alone, or plumbing would be far more competitive than being a low-level staffer. People want the status that comes with doing something others couldn't get to do, something that proves they have specific merit beyond the norm. A highly competitive PSA brands public service as such a field.
SWester, feinsteingrad and Jeff mention government schools for mid-career gov't workers... I think those would do well to be semi-autonomous graduate schools within the academy, but currently they do not improve the newly-graduated cohorts, nor do they shape their undergraduate education. Many/most of us fundementally change the way we think about a wide range of issues during our undergraduate. Infusing that environment with an awareness of social problems and public policy challenges will shape the way the academy graduates approach policy research (hopefully making policy a social science in their eyes, and not an ideological issue). The current schools simply teach a set of skills; the academy would have a much broader and deeper effect (without requiring addition educational hours on the part of the individual). Their current programs could continue uninterrupted, as they could have Masters' or certificate programs in their current specialities.
Reid argues that this program will create a useless set of 21-26 year olds w/o no experience; I think those five years applied to real-world problems gives us a population of 26 year olds that have done more than be glorified secretaries (which really is what most entry-level professional jobs are, for emerging liberal arts grads). Those five years will give real experience, and as they are at the "command" of the operators of the program, the work they do in their 5 year service commitment can be tailored to make them useful after that period.
Jen brings up the current gov't efforts in this area. We have a few under-funded volunteer corps, which tap enthusiasm for labour, but they don't actually teach public policy. We have "executive training" schools run by the government, but you need to be a gov't employee beforehand. Merge the Dept of Ag school, NIJ, etc etc into the US PSA, as topic-specific graduate schools, and you have a central institute for the various fields of governance.
Which brings me to Research...
The various War Colleges and Military Academies are the main source of military policy research. This is not to deny the role of institutions like Brookings (nor its miltiary policy analogues), but the government (clearly) lacks credible, unbiased information sources beyond the CBO/OMB and the CRS. The latter is a research aid but does not conduct studies etc. The various research arms of agencies are too subject to executive branch political pressure (as we've seen w/ the EPA reports, among others). A governmental, yet independent institute that could study the populace and the impact of various policies on them, would be invaluable.
For those who suggest a ROTC-like system:
ROTC+military academies work
Public Service and Leadership Corp + the USPSA would have a similar role. Without the academy, you don't reify public service as a desirable career track, don't have the research benefits, and the infrastructure costs are just a few buildings on a green, and hiring some professors.
I think this is a wonderful idea, save only needing a better name than the US Public Service Academy.
How about the William Jefferson Clinton National Academy for Public Service? Located in Takoma (or Takoma Park MD, wherever there is room). Other than the railyards or rock creek, where else can one allocate 500 acres or so, within DC?
The uptake size should be exactly equal to the total size of all the military academies, which is to say about 13,000 undergraduates.
Rahul:
"An educational environment where every class impacts policy issues relevant to the course material provides a very different perspective, one that would lead to more qualified public servants."
First of all, I think you are greatly underestimating the amount of "policy" discussion that goes on at liberal arts colleges. Granted its not a day-in-day-out sort of thing, but to focus primarily on policy rather than on core education (i.e. writing, research, basic knowledge) seems to put the cart before the horse. Additionally, it should be noted that most public servants are not policymakers. They are policy enacters. Whether they fully understand the policy or agree with it is not as important as whether they have the basic skills to put it in action.
"The US Military Academies refute the assumption that military officers must be cretins and morons."
First of all, I'm not sure where this assumption ever would have come from. (Would you think that all military officers are morons and cretins if the academies didn't exist? Who would?) Secondly, are you saying that the primary purpose of this PSA is to get 18 year olds pumped up about being Dept of Ag liason in Montana? Is that something really worth all this money? A glorified PR campaign? And I don't think it would even succeed at that. The military academies are prestigous because they are viewed as one of the primary paths to the top of the military. I don't see how this PSA could achieve that same exclusivity in the public service sector (especially with the extant elite colleges providing the type of competition that the military academies don't face).
And again I reiterate my belief that I don't think the public sector is wanting for a bunch of 20-somethings that have thought a lot about world hunger, etc. I think to improve the prestige of public service, the focus should be on retaining professionals with established careers both in the public and private spheres.
This PSA seems like a boondoggle that provides marginal benefits outweighed by their costs.
I'm glad to see that this little idea Shawn Raymond and I cooked up is generating such response. We appreciate and respect the skepticism, and I invite everyone to visit our website, read our proposal, and contact us to keep the discussion going.
I must agree with Rahul that I think most of the readers have missed the point. Let me address a couple of issues briefly:
1) ROTC model: The idea of spending money on scholarships rather than a new institution ignores a couple realities. First, Congress is even less likely to appropriate money for another nebulous, low-profile scholarship program than for a high-profile, prestigious creation of an institution. We recognize that the Academy is a bold idea that faces an uphill battle, but we also believe that Americans will support and pay for good, timely ideas -- and this idea is a winner. Secondly, the the most effective leadership development programs (such as the military academies) recognize a key fact: people need to be around other highly-motivated, driven people. Giving a scholarship to a student here and a student there means that the students won't be surrounded by peers who are actively engaged in the same service-oriented education they are. The kind of idea exchange, intensity, and peer motivation that occurs on a campus is invaluable for the creation of leaders.
2) Other programs: Other programs, such as the Feinstein program or the Sanford Institute at Duke (where I graduated) are wonderful, and we seek to build on the models that those schools have created. But there is no substitute for a making public service a national priority, and there is no better way to reinvigorate the notion of public service than by building a top-flight institution devoted to it.
3) Unrealistic? Maybe. But that is no reason not to try. America was built on a bold idea, and we're not going to shrink from the challenge.
Join us,
Chris
"First, Congress is even less likely to appropriate money for another nebulous, low-profile scholarship program than for a high-profile, prestigious creation of an institution."
Do you have an empirical data to prove that? It seems to me that Congress is awfully adept at spending money on obscure low-profile programs, especially when they can aggregate the programs into some vague election-year accomplishment like "provided scholarships for 500 inner-city kids, etc." Granted, a school like this is just the sort of fodder you'd hear of in a State of the Union address. But like Bush putting a man on Mars, it is equally unlikely to actually be enacted once the bounce in the polls is over.
"people need to be around other highly-motivated, driven people."
Yes, those places have names: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc...
"the students won't be surrounded by peers who are actively engaged in the same service-oriented education they are. The kind of idea exchange, intensity, and peer motivation that occurs on a campus is invaluable for the creation of leaders."
As discussed above, there is no uniformity in public service. People could be an astronomist, a cop, or a city planner and still be a civil servant. Therefore, for the school to serve its stated purpose it would need to be equally diverse. However, with that diversity would come a diffusion of this supposed intensity and idea exchange. In fact, if it were properly diverse, it would start looking a hell of a lot like a normal university, so why not just stick with those?
When you boil it down, this just seems a lot like those Model UN or Youth Leadership Conferences, which attract the type of kid who likes the idea of being a leader but who has no actual idea what it means to be a leader, let alone the natural skills to be one.
And also, I don't think the "assignment" provision is at all feasible. According to the plan, the school will be given notice of needs at the federal, state, and local levels. The placement office will assign students to the positions, apparently without any interviews or choice on the part of the employer or employee. While that works in the military, I don't think it's practical or even possible in civil service.
Reid:
I appreciate your willingness to give thoughtful comments about the USPSA proposal.
I must admit, however, that your pessimism mirrors what folks said about the Peace Corps when JFK first proposed it. That program has energized tens of thousands of young people to give back, and it has done so in a way that handing out scholarships/fellowships/stipends to do the same work could never have achieved. In many respects, we hope to do for America what the Peace Corps has done for the world: raise visibility about the need for young people to give back to their country, put the federal government's stamp of approval on encouraging young people to serve, and attract the best and brightest to participate.
Whether or not Congress would fund 5100 full-ride scholarships so young people at public and private universities all across America could do public service after graduation, that type of program misses the bigger picture: creating a unique culture of service on a single campus where young people roll up their sleeves and immerse themselves in a hard core, year-round experience where the entire curriculum and campus corps is focused on one thing -- service. Our students would sacrifice the traditional college experience in order to be part of this school. That type of experience cannot be replicated by having pockets of scholarship students scattered around the country at different campuses.
It's important, I think, to have that beacon campus. Frankly, I don't think our proposal to create the Academy and your idea to have scholarships is mutually exclusive. To the contrary, I think our comepeting ideas are 100% compatible. Hopefully, the Academy will serve as the catalyst down the road for creating ROTC-like public service programs at college campuses across the country.
At the end of the day, however, you may think public service is hog wash, change will never happen, or the scholarship route is the only way to go. Regardless, I'm glad you care enough to write about our idea.
"That program has energized tens of thousands of young people to give back, and it has done so in a way that handing out scholarships/fellowships/stipends to do the same work could never have achieved."
How so exactly? Fulbright scholarships have energized hundreds of thousands of students.
I think one other thing I'm confused about this proposal is the distinction between public service and civil service. There's a huge difference between the two (e.g. the difference between volunteering for the PTA and actually being a teacher). From what I'm reading on the website, it's not clear to me which one is the focus. If it is civil service, than I definitely don't see what the necessity for a new college is for it (if the civil service corps is short in some fields, it would be better to encourage those fields specifically). If its public service, than I also don't see how a new school would be any better at creating citizens willing to be engaged in their communities, etc.
Frankly I think the key to encouraging more public service is to convince people that they can fit it into the daily lives. Pushing everything else aside for 9 years doesn't seem to teach those kids how to balance.
Anyway, I appreciate the exchange. My only advice would be to emphasize the public service element of the school (I realize it's in the name itself, but the description left me confused) and downplay or eliminate the civil service element.
Reid:
I'm a big fan of the Fulbright program. Indeed, Chris Myers Asch participated in it after his Teach for America stint. My point about the Peace Corps is this: it is more visible to the American public than the Fulbright program, and it creates a unique corps of energetic folks who are working together for a common goal. That type of visibility, ethic, and culture cannot be replicated the same way through a scholarship program. I also believe that having a visible, flagship institution that recruits top-flight young people is the key to, as you say, "encouraging more public service" by "convinc[ing] people that they can fit it into the daily lives." I couldn't agree more with your statement.
Ironically, the amount of federal dollars required to operate the USPSA falls almost in line with the money earmarked every year for the Fulbright program.
I see your point about needed to make a clearer distinction between civil service and public service. Graduates would be placed wherever they are needed most. So a student could be placed as a Border Guard (civil service) at a location that can't attract qualified recruits or as a homebuidler for Habitat for Humanity (public service) in a community where the organzation has yet to reach. The whole point is to make the placements flexible enough to be respond to this country's changing needs.
Your critique of this proposal is important. I encourage you to work with us to make the proposal even stronger. Please email me if you are interested: raymond@uspublicserviceacademy.org.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Shawn
If the term of service is only five years, why not solicit student volunteers from our existing universities. If one of the goals is to produce teachers, why not use existing infrastructure of our universities who are more experienced in producing teachers and just pay for the volunteers schooling. That would be much cheaper than building an entire academy and hiring an entire faculty. Offer a set number of scholarships to a group of participating universities and let the academic competition begin. If the politicians are in the nomination loop, their primary goal will be diversity and they will take whomever applies just to make the quota. Basing entry on non-competitive diversity decisions will result in another generation of mediocre government workers. Its not the same as a military academy, because the folks selected for military service are very competitive because they are going into battle and their life depends on being good at what they do.
I served time in Hillary Clinton’s Gulag. Somewhere between Purgatory and the system of Soviet labor camps, Hillary spawned the US Public Service Academy, twelve years ago. The Duke lacrosse team fiasco shows that liberal educators have created a phony cultural paradigm that distorts reality. And, nobody exploits phony paradigms, obfuscates the truth, or games the system like the Clintons.
I Got Your Public Service Academy; Right Here
Set the Wayback Machine for 23 August 1995: a hot day in the nation’s capitol. But 3000 miles due west on California’s Central Coast, a constellation of events was unfolding that would have a profound effect on Western civilization; plunge it into war. Yet, this cataclysmic upheaval was only part of the plan. Bill Clinton picked up the telephone. It was his Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, calling from a payphone in Monterey. Bill held the receiver at arms length and gazed at the tasteful floral arrangement that adorned the Oval Office. Leon’s disembodied voice filled the room. What now, asked Hillary. It’s that damn college, mouthed Bill. There was, no getting out. Hillary nodded, just tell Leon he’ll get whatever he needs: http://theseedsof9-11.com