When you said it should be for "everybody", did you mean all American citizens, or just all upcoming college students?

That's where the confusion is coming from.

11/9/2008 12:36:32 AM

All high school graduates and those people turning 18 (not in high school).

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 12:40 AM. Reason : sss]

11/9/2008 12:39:56 AM

Wait, you are proposing complusory civil service for everyone? No thanks.

I liked having the freedom to do whatever I wanted to when I was 18ish, and I want my kids to have that same freedom. We got rid of compulsory service in the military, and for good reason, I see no good reasons to establish it for some sort of civil service. It isn't needed, or wanted.

11/9/2008 12:59:16 AM

It needn't be compulsory. Just for people who would like a stipend while in school, where you can spend it on what you need, be it lab fees or beer.

11/9/2008 1:18:51 AM

^ Please read the rest of the thread.....

Quote :

"After you complete high school or on your eighteenth birthday, you would be required to enter volunteer service for your country for one to two years. In exchange, you would get the opportunity to serve and respect your country, some experience/skills, and three to six thousand dollars to begin your adult life. "

Is what I was talking about.

11/9/2008 3:07:24 AM

^Re-read http://change.gov/americaserves/

It's been revised and no longer includes "required" service, at least not for college students.

It still seems to be implying that middle school and high school students will be required to do community service work... but it's really not all that different than the status quo of middle and high school students being required to do useless busy-work or being required to attend classes daily that are more or less content-free (from everything I've seen in high school, you could sit in class for the first 15 minutes or the full 90 minutes, and you'd still have learned the same amount of content). I'd like to see them provide some provisions for students already busy with extra-curricular activities, but overall, it's just slightly more stuff that students will have to do that they'd rather not. At least the community service is helpful to something.

Also, high school civics, at least in NC, already has a community service requirement in order to pass the class. That, or I think you can write an extra-long paper or some other bullshit assignment that is built to be so long and time-consuming that it basically forces students into picking the community service. The point is that requiring community service from high schoolers isn't a new concept.


Do I think it's necessary or right to require middle school and high school community service? Absolutely not. Nor do I see any necessity or right-ness in most of the other things middle school and high school students are required to do. This new stuff is just about as rational as giving homework.

11/9/2008 3:36:28 AM

Quote :

"Do I think it's necessary or right to require middle school and high school community service? Absolutely not."

i'm with you here. honestly, i don't see why so many people bought into a candidate that wants so much more government involvement in our lives. then again, he couldn't even vote to ban spreading a 24-week unborn baby's brain cavity and sucking its brains out with a vacuum so... well that speaks for itself in my book.

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 4:00 AM. Reason : ]

11/9/2008 4:00:28 AM

Quote :

"Nor do I see any necessity or right-ness in most of the other things middle school and high school students are required to do. "

What other things specifically are you talking about here?

^ how is it you can complain about gov. involvement, then complain about a LACK of gov. involvement in the same sentence?

But, you're doing a great job representing the right, keep it up, and Obama is guaranteed another 4 years.


[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 4:23 AM. Reason : http://www.alternet.org/rights/80556/smearing_obama's_record_on_choice/]

11/9/2008 4:12:34 AM

Quote :

"What other things specifically are you talking about here?"

Sit through the majority of classes, for one thing. A typical high school class period contains 10-20 minutes of content and 70-80 minutes of mindless repetition or pointless discussion (speaking of 90-minute schedules... obviously, adjust the numbers a bit if you're talking about different class rotations). It's wasteful and reflects the fact that education funding is going to all the wrong places. Salaries should be raised so schools are getting better teachers, and funding should be going towards improving teaching methods.

Nightly homework, for another thing. I'm okay with its existence... an option for students to practice what they've learned should always be provided. But it should be left as optional. If they choose to do it, the teacher should grade it so they know if their answers were/were not correct, but not as an actual documented grade. If they need to do homework to learn the material, then they should. If they don't, there's no need. And if they do need to but choose not to, then their tests and project scores will reflect that. Requiring homework as a grade, however, is simply a waste of time and effort by all parties involved.

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 4:29 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2008 4:21:49 AM

^ The majority of that is not feasible for a typical public high school.

I also question your implication that most of school funding DOESN'T go to trying to implement better teaching methods. This is where most new funding is primarily aimed, beyond the basic stuff like new building constructions and maintenance.

And it seems crazy to me that you're against community service on the basis that it, like homework, is completely useless.

11/9/2008 4:29:43 AM

Quote :

"I also question your implication that most of school funding DOESN'T go to trying to implement better teaching methods. This is where most new funding is primarily aimed, beyond the basic stuff like new building constructions and maintenance."

Actually, a large portion of it may very well be going to this, but it still wouldn't be enough. It's entirely likely that our school systems are underfunded as a whole, due to the fact that our government has expanded beyond reasonable limits and wastes money on everything it possibly can. If our government were to cut some other areas out and divert the newly-freed resources into education funding, I'd be very happy. And still, research won't do much good until school systems start getting more teachers who are actually qualified to use such methods (see: raising teacher salary).

Quote :

"And it seems crazy to me that you're against community service on the basis that it, like homework, is completely useless."

What other rational reason is there to be against it? And to risk venturing into a semantics argument, I mentioned that it has slightly more merit than homework, given that it actually intends to help the community. I'm against it because despite these merits, it is unnecessary and mostly a waste of time.

It can't be said to be a violation of student's rights... at least not unless you think that homework is too (for the record, I don't think this... my views against homework are based upon necessity and efficiency, not human rights). This community service is essentially just homework of a different type, which is kind of why I'm surprised so many people are against it when those same people aren't questioning the status-quo on other school requirements.

Sorry, but I just don't see how someone can make a sound argument against this required service and not at least imply an argument against requiring homework as well... now, if you're against it because, on top of homework, it's just too many responsibilities and assignments to give a student, that I could understand. That sort of argument would be about setting boundaries with regards to how much students should work vs how much free time they should have... which is a perfectly valid method of deciding something... but unless you honestly believe that all students benefit from doing homework (a.k.a. bullshit), you would be (implicitly) questioning the amount of homework kids should be doing as well.

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 4:52 AM. Reason : going to bed now]

11/9/2008 4:50:18 AM

i wonder if you can work off your required school community service while doing your criminal community service too

11/9/2008 9:39:29 AM

Quote :

"how is it you can complain about gov. involvement, then complain about a LACK of gov. involvement in the same sentence?"

I just think it's sad that Obama wants to control whether or not kids do community service hours but doesn't even have the moral fiber to prevent the destruction of half-term babies. If he's going to create more government control, at least do it where it makes sense. There are some things that should be regulated just out of common sense and morality, and the rest should be left alone.

11/9/2008 1:31:52 PM

^ so are you now retracting this statement?

Quote :

" i don't see why so many people bought into a candidate that wants so much more government involvement in our lives"

Tromboner:

Quote :

"I'm against it because despite these merits, it is unnecessary and mostly a waste of time."

How did you reach this conclusion? Few people would be willing to broadly acknowledge that community service in general is a waste of time, and while there are several instances of people wasting time doing "community service," I don't see how you can assert a program whose details are not known, and that is somewhat unprecedented in scale, is a waste of time.

Quote :

"It can't be said to be a violation of student's rights... "

Students are notorious for not actually having rights, as courts of ruled on several occasions. Many (maybe most in North Carolina) students in high school ALREADY have to do community service to graduate as well, so this program likely wouldn't affect them.

Quote :

"at least not unless you think that homework is too (for the record, I don't think this... my views against homework are based upon necessity and efficiency, not human rights). This community service is essentially just homework of a different type, which is kind of why I'm surprised so many people are against it when those same people aren't questioning the status-quo on other school requirements."

Homework isn't required in school, I had several high school classes where the teachers didn't emphasize homework. Teachers do this largely by choice, and largely because in certain contexts, it's proven to work. It's not something that you could really fix with legislation.

I'm not saying either that I think this community service thing is a fantastic idea that will surely solve the problems people have with apathy, but I can't see how people are bashing it now, when they know little about it. As an idea, there's nothing bad about it that I can see, the negatives are in how it could potentially be implemented.

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 1:50 PM. Reason : ]

11/9/2008 1:42:25 PM

Quote :

"i wonder if you can work off your required school community service while doing your criminal community service too"

if so, you can knock out both in 1/3rd the time they require

when ive done comm. service, i got 30 hours done in about 3

so

comm service for tuition will not work

11/9/2008 1:47:56 PM

^ It will work, there will just be massive abuse of the system, just like any government, bureaucratic, or corporate function. It's called human nature.

11/9/2008 1:54:12 PM

Quote :

"comm service for tuition will not work "

What do you mean "work"?

I don't think the aim is any greater than giving people a better awareness for their community, which is almost impossible to NOT work.

And what are you basing this off of? I doubt this is like court-ordered service where you're screwed if you don't do it. It'll more likely be if someone misses their service, they still get the money they just have to make it up. And I also doubt, like court-ordered service, you are told what to do, it's more likely they'll let you choose.

And as DG said:
"Right. Wouldn't this actually fit in with the conservative idea that you should work for the things you receive and not just ask for handouts?
"

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 1:56 PM. Reason : ]

11/9/2008 1:55:42 PM

This thread gives me the feeling that all conservatives are the Gospel of Wealth, Social Darwinists they appear to be and really hate poor people, like there was a consortium of people who said, "You know what would really piss off the guy with the Doric columns? A bum-off."

11/9/2008 1:58:36 PM

Quote :

"Students are notorious for not actually having rights, as courts of ruled on several occasions. Many (maybe most in North Carolina) students in high school ALREADY have to do community service to graduate as well, so this program likely wouldn't affect them."

Agreed. In fact I think I mentioned this earlier. Thought it actually would affect them in that they'd need to do slightly more community service than they do currently, but it's still the same concept.

Quote :

"How did you reach this conclusion? "

Community service in general is NOT a waste of time. In the case of school-driven community service, students would have very little incentive to provide quality work. It's most likely that a great many of them would simply half-ass whatever they do for service, making it not all that worthwhile. It would still have merits, but it's a question of whether the positives outweigh the negatives. (Yes, it's speculation, but it's speculation based upon concepts that have proven over the years to be accurate.)

Quote :

"Teachers do this largely by choice"

Well, yeah. Just because a few of them choose not to give graded/required homework does not give any legitimacy to the idea of required homework. It's not like I have any reason to back off on my claims because it just so happens that not everyone is doing it. It's still happening, even if it isn't universal.

Quote :

"I'm not saying either that I think this community service thing is a fantastic idea that will surely solve the problems people have with apathy, but I can't see how people are bashing it now, when they know little about it. As an idea, there's nothing bad about it that I can see, the negatives are in how it could potentially be implemented."

So, you're for it, then? Or at least willing to give it a try? Okay, I really don't see any problem with your argument. I was talking about how I don't see why anyone could be against it for other reasons. If you're for it, that's fine.

11/9/2008 2:11:04 PM

Quote :

"And someone to audit the whole system, and a committee to determine what qualifies as community service for the purposes of this system. Never mind that since it appears this is going to be credited in the form of a tax refund, a system to ensure that its only going to students. Plus an appeals system. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the idea of a "do community service, get a cheap loan", but remember that this is a government program, and will therefore require more resources and money than you would expect."

Bingo. Just the basic bookkeeping it would take to keep up with everybody's hours and documentation would require an insane amount of full-time employees. And of course there would be plenty of people taking advantage of the system, which is even a bigger waste of money.

It's a good idea on paper but like most government programs, that doesn't always translate to success in real life.

11/9/2008 2:17:33 PM

i explained the differences moron

11/9/2008 5:44:49 PM

bring about compulsory civic engagement. Either military service, or community oriented service. Quit demanding so much from the country and give back.

11/9/2008 6:24:16 PM

Quote :

"Quit demanding so much from the country and give back."

Is your target audience those who live off of handouts or those that live off of inheritance?

11/9/2008 6:46:37 PM

^^^ So you have no problem with gov. involvement in people's lives? Because that's what you said.

11/9/2008 7:03:52 PM

Quote :

"I just think it's sad that Obama wants to control whether or not kids do community service hours but doesn't even have the moral fiber to prevent the destruction of half-term babies. If he's going to create more government control, at least do it where it makes sense. There are some things that should be regulated just out of common sense and morality, and the rest should be left alone."

11/9/2008 7:53:34 PM

How do you tax people with who have no money? Why, you take their labor by force. It worked when we dragged Africans over here against their will in the 19th century, and it can work today.

So what was that about no tax increase for people making under $250,000? Because my guess is that most high school and college kids made close to zero, but here is Obama seeking to expropriate 50-100 hours of their labor. Sure looks like a tax to me. By law, high school kids, by DOL rules, can work up to 1200 hours per year. For kid that works every hour she can, this is about a 4% tax. Kids that work less pay a higher effective tax rate, up to infinite for kids not working at all (hey, this tax is even regressive). Also, richer kids trying to get into top colleges will be the least affected, as they are already volunteering at a level close to this, so most of the burden of this tax will fall on the poor.

[Edited on November 9, 2008 at 9:33 PM. Reason : quoting]

11/9/2008 9:30:50 PM

Reductio ad absurdum...ftw?

11/9/2008 11:28:19 PM

^ i'm kind of surprised it's LoneSnark going down that path.

11/9/2008 11:34:54 PM

Quote :

"Bingo. Just the basic bookkeeping it would take to keep up with everybody's hours and documentation would require an insane amount of full-time employees. And of course there would be plenty of people taking advantage of the system, which is even a bigger waste of money."

I think maybe the disconnect here is that I'm not taking this nearly as seriously as some of you are.

I was in the IB program in high school, which required 150 hours of extracurricular activity of different types, with a focus on community service. In theory, it was a fairly elaborate setup requiring careful documentation and monitoring. In reality, our coordinator took a cursory glance at most of the time sheets and could easily be convinced to accept all but the most ludicrous activities.

IB is an international program affiliated with a vast, wasteful, incompetent bureaucracy (the United Nations), and successful completion of the program hinged, in part, on completion of community service. It's not really different from Obama's plan in those regards, and it fundamentally worked. With the barest minimum of oversight and coordination, it managed to increase participation in community service. Oh, sure, no one actually did 150 real hours of anything, but many did more than they would have otherwise. And it did this with a brief form we had to complete for each activity, a coordinator who was already a teacher, and a form she then sent to her equivalent among coordinators stating we had done what we were supposed to.

Now, in practice, for all I know Obama's suggestion has elaborate mechanisms for enforcing, overseeing, auditing, and managing this program, but my point is that the basic idea can be carried out on the cheap and actually do some of what it's supposed to do.

11/10/2008 1:09:30 AM

Obama should listen to opinion polls and drop this idea.

11/10/2008 1:50:57 AM

^ are opinion polls against this?

11/10/2008 2:33:58 AM

^ Depends what 'this' is. Some people in this thread seem to have the idea that this is not going to be compulsory, while others are affraid that refusal gets you expelled or even arrested. There is a huge difference between any such program merely being a waste of money and it turning into a human rights violation.

11/10/2008 2:10:45 PM

Quote :

"Now, in practice, for all I know Obama's suggestion has elaborate mechanisms for enforcing, overseeing, auditing, and managing this program, but my point is that the basic idea can be carried out on the cheap and actually do some of what it's supposed to do."

Yeah, but anything involving federal money is never basic.

11/10/2008 5:46:05 PM

Quote :

"Community service in general is NOT a waste of time. In the case of school-driven community service, students would have very little incentive to provide quality work. It's most likely that a great many of them would simply half-ass whatever they do for service, making it not all that worthwhile. It would still have merits, but it's a question of whether the positives outweigh the negatives. (Yes, it's speculation, but it's speculation based upon concepts that have proven over the years to be accurate.)"

This has not been proven, and you are actually dead wrong. Any service is better than none. And believe it or not, high school age kids are still extremely impressionable, and put under normal supervision, tend to get a lot of rewarding experiences out of any community involvement. You might want to check your facts.

11/11/2008 3:43:28 AM

^ Then I would strongly recommend to the parents of the world to get their children into a program of community involvement (such as the communist party). But no one should be ordered to serve others, however warm and fuzzy it makes the men with guns feel.

11/11/2008 10:22:37 AM

we cant even get kids to go to school.

this wont work

11/11/2008 11:08:09 AM

Quote :

"Is your target audience those who live off of handouts or those that live off of inheritance?"

i can't speak to the intent of his statement, but this is a false dichotomy. why are you trying to put everyone in one of those two categories? everyone benefits from the government and should give back.

11/11/2008 12:12:11 PM

It is true that everyone benefits from the government, we just wish everyone could benefit a little less from the government.

11/11/2008 2:10:35 PM

^^ I was interested to what your school of thought was on which people use government services. Sorry for being so harsh and trolling.

11/11/2008 2:45:41 PM

if im not paying the government im paying someone.

same shit to me.

11/11/2008 3:43:38 PM