NCoC: John Bridgeland on Mandatory Service-learning

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John Bridgeland on Mandatory Service-learning

December 3, 2008

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Should Service-learning be Mandatory?December 2, 2008

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Two reports released in 2006 sent shock waves across America, but also provided new momentum for service-learning. The first report, The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts, highlighted the fact that almost one-third of all public high school students – and nearly 50 percent of minorities – fail to graduate with their class. Academic failure was not the principal cause – 70 percent of the students reported that they did not see the real-world applications of their schoolwork and nearly half felt bored by their classes. More than 80 percent of students believed that if schools provided opportunities for real-world learning – such as service-learning – these opportunities would improve students’ chances of graduating from high school. The second report, America’s Civic Health Index, showed that the most dramatic divides in civic health related to levels of education. College graduates dominate community life, while high school dropouts are almost completely missing. What is one cure to these twin ills of high school dropout and civic disengagement? Service-learning.

Service-learning is a critical tool in dropout prevention. Research has shown that high-quality service-learning programs can help keep students engaged in their coursework and school, while strengthening their leadership skills, civic awareness, writing proficiencies, and understandings of important public policy issues. Our report, Engaged for Success, which examined the role of service-learning in keeping students on track to graduate, found that service-learning could be a powerful tool in stemming the tide of dropouts. Seventy-four percent of African Americans, 70 percent of Hispanics, and 64 percent of all students said that service-learning could have a big effect on keeping dropouts in school. More than 80 percent of all students said they would enroll in service-learning classes if they were offered in their school, while only 16 percent reported that their school was offering such classes. Service-learning could also help create a new generation of youth who are academically prepared for success in college and who possess a strong sense of civic responsibility.

The benefits of service-learning are clear, and while I do not feel that it should be mandated, I do believe that it should be available to every student in America’s classrooms, particularly those youth trapped in our country’s lowest-performing schools – the 2,000 “dropout factories” where more than 50 percent of dropouts can be found.

Hope abounds with the introduction of the Serve America Act by Senators Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. The bill, supported by the broad-based ServiceNation coalition, includes new support for service-learning in part to help address the high school dropout epidemic. Passage of this legislation would be a new beginning for service-learning and the millions of children it could help.

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