CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
Requiring Thoughtfulness

By Stephen Baker, SSA Ph.D. student and Katie Richards, AM 1997

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) recently announced that participation in community service activities will be required for high school students, starting with the freshmen class of 1998. The graduation requirements are intended to integrate outside projects and classroom learning through the social studies curriculum.

Chicago's effort shadows broader ongoing efforts targeting youth education and development. "Service learning" projects were represented in large numbers at the Presidents' Summit for America's Future last spring in Philadelphia, and figure prominently in the follow-up work now being organized. In the education field specifically, President Clinton has encouraged states to follow the lead of Maryland, the first state to require community service as a condition for high school graduation.

While the design of the CPS effort is incomplete, many of the intended benefits of this effort have been articulated by program administrators. By providing opportunities to reinforce knowledge gained in classroom settings, community service is viewed as an effective teaching method. According to proponents, churches, medical facilities, museums, libraries, day care centers, primary schools, nursing homes and parks and recreation facilities will serve as classrooms for "special learning."

Community service is also viewed as a chance to instill values of good character, citizenship and work ethic. A developed sense of social and civic responsibility is expected, as are improvements in student attitudes, motivation and achievement. Studies of similar efforts have linked community service to enhancing a youth's sense of the importance of education, service and work; service experiences can cultivate useful job skills including punctuality, reliability, cooperation and the capacity to see a task through to completion (Branch and Freedman 1986, Harrison 1987 (as cited in Wynn, Richman, Rubenstein, Littell with Britt and Yoken 1988)).

These developmental and educational goals are familiar to educators. Schools have always been institutions that transmit both factual and ethical information and seek to facilitate progress toward productive citizenship, though they are not always as explicit in identifying these goals. The idea that learning can take place outside of the classroom is also a well established idea among educators, and schools regularly adopt measures intended to make meaningful connections between what is taught in the classroom and what takes place outside.

What, then, is not to like? Opponents of mandated community service programs cite in their arguments the 13th and 14th Amendments, which, respectively, serve as protections from involuntary servitude and guarantee due process in deprivations of liberty. (The Supreme Court has declined several times to hear these cases.) Students who are already engaged in service have also worried that the nature of volunteering is degraded when others are mandated to do it.

Opponents' concerns notwithstanding, the program is on track to be instituted in Chicago public schools. Philosophical arguments are giving way to questions of implementation. In our experiences in documenting and researching the operation of similar programs, we believe several issues will arise as rhetoric is translated into practice.

Choosing Partners and Building Relationships
Programs between outside service organizations and schools must be well-conceived and well-planned and success will depend on the ability of key stakeholders to work together to identify its purposes, and to craft the policies and rules that will guide its implementation.

Much of this policy making lies ahead. Schools Chief Paul Vallas has suggested that some community service activities will qualify as community service, but that there are "obvious activities that cross the line" and will not be accepted. (Poe, 1997). How will this line be decided? Similarly, what mechanism will be used to monitor completion of the service requirement? Under what conditions will community agencies be interested in having students volunteer at their sites? What are the burdens, roles or responsibilities this mandate places on community agencies, schools, businesses and others in the community?

What safety or liability issues are raised? Initially, the most important question may be how students will learn about the community service options available. Both Maryland and Pennsylvania, which have instituted large scale community service initiatives, have had varying success in implementing their programs. They have found, however, that the most successful schools, those with the highest participation rates, have formal mechanisms for linking students with projects and on-going reciprocal relationships with the participating organizations (Archer 1997; Yugar 1996).

Learning in Community Must Translate to Learning in the Classroom
CPS states that it will connect the students' activities to the social studies curriculum. How this happens will be critical. The experience of schools and community agencies indicates that the most effective and successful service learning programs have been those projects that couple the students' actual service experience with opportunities for reflection in the course of classroom lessons (Conrad and Hedin 1981, Danzig and Szanton 1986, Newmann and Rutter 1983, (as cited in Wynn, Richman, Rubenstein, Littell with Britt and Yoken 1988); Yugar 1996).

Making this connection meaningful is difficult. Like most successful learning experiences, it must be more than formulaic; asking students to keep a weekly journal or to write a single paper for class about their experience may not be enough. Service learning works best when it transcends a "checklist" mentality, and offers a larger meaning to the lessons a student learns in schoolQa way to relate the classroom experience to the real world environment. When this happens, the service learning experience provides a rich opportunity to promote academic achievement and build valuable skills in problem solving and in working cooperatively (Grant Commission 1988 (as cited in Wynn, Richman, Rubenstein, Littell with Britt and Yoken 1988). Maryland's experience has been telling: "When the service itself is a challenging and productive activity, it instills in students a real fire for learning. But when service amounts to busywork, it becomes just another classroom assignment." (Goldsmith 1995)

Time, Money and Commitment
The research and learning from other states demonstrates some of the benefits of community service and service learning programs. Like any plan, however, the devil is in the details--in the implementation and in the dollars allocated for implementation. The two concerns raised above require the availability of both financial and other resources if they are to be appropriately addressed. Teachers must be given adequate preparation time and support for weaving service learning into their curriculum. Resources must be available to handle the new paperwork and administration demands arising from the program.

It is difficult to know where high school teachers and administrators will ultimately place "community service" on their crowded list of priorities and mandates. What seems clear to us, however, is that without a responsible level of resources and attention to detail the war of implementation may be lost, and eclipse the philosophical battles that preceded it. We hope the Chicago Public Schools can turn this compelling idea into a successful program. We all should be sparedQespecially in these too-ironic timesQthe specter of a program established to battle cynicism and detachment creating only that much more of it.

References

Suzanne Goldsmith, "The Community is their Textbook," The Annerican Prospect no. 22 (Summer 1995): 5157 http://epn.org/prospect/22/22gold.html.

Jeff Archer, "Students Need Help Meeting Service Mandates, Study Says," Education Week(5/14/97) http://www.edweek.org/htbin/

Yolanda Yugar; and others. Learn and Serve: Evaluation of the Pennsylvania 1995-96 Learn and Serve America Grant Program. (June 1996) http://ericae2.educ.cua.edu/db/riecije/ed398448.htm

Anne Lewis, "Urban Youth in Community Service: Becoming Part of the Solution," ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education Digest no. 81 (1992) http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/digests/dig81.html

Joan Wynn, Harold Richman, Robert A. Rubenstein, Julia Littell with Brian Britt and Carol Yoken. Communities and Adolescents: An Exploration of Reciprocal Supports for Youth and America's Future: The William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship (May 1988)

Poe, Janita, "Volunteerism in curricula offers students no choice," Chicago Tribune. (9/15/97)

Stephen Baker is currently pursing a doctorate at SSA. Katie Richards is a recent SSA alumna. Both work at Chapin Hall Center for Children.

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