perfidy

Stranger things have happened, after all. Not that he's going to win the Presidency, and not that he should, but John Kerry recently unveiled a plan by which high-school students could do community service in exchange for college tuition. Two years would get you four years' worth of state-college tuition. The Boston Globe's detail-feeble coverage is here.

As much as this is an Uber-Democratic plan, in that it purports to improve society through well-meaning massive expenditures of cash, I can find a lot to like in it. In, fact, I would go farther. Kids these days (kids these days!! haw!) seem more cynical yet more pampered than ever before (perhaps the two are connected), and a program that allows young people to donate time in exchange for a concrete open-ended reward seems like a good idea on principle. Hopefully it would force a connection between duty and citizenship.

Mind you, I'm not asking for a program like they have in Germany, where all citizens must serve in the armed forces or emergency response squads, but maybe something close wouldn't hurt.

How about a two-tiered plan, in which all teens must log 400 hours of community service (perhaps sponsored through local high schools) and others may apply for the right to do two years of public service in exchange for a college education? As long as any plan, whether Kerry's or mine, is flexible enough to allow for a wide range of possible services-- such as Habitat For Humanity, Amigos de las Americas, Americorps, and local church groups, homeless shelters, and charity initiatives-- and as long as the bureaucracy could be kept to a minimum, I'm in favor of such a system.

When I was 16, my parents paid a bundle for me to spend two months in Mexico, building latrines and doing basic public health in an extremely poor area, and the experience changed my life. If I'd have stayed in Ohio for those two months, playing Dungeons and Dragons and sneaking Budweisers out in the woods next to the Pee Rock, I would have missed out on one of the most educational, transformative, and important experiences of my life. The time I spent there was the first exposure I had to life outside Ohio, not to mention life outside "Western" Civilization, and it has been the main impetus behind my interest in politics, history, and world affairs. I tell ya, there's nothing better than waiting for the repairs to the brand-new power line to your remote village in the highlands so you can watch Knight Rider in dubbed Spanish ("El Auto Increible") to show a teenager that there's more in the world than you ever imagined.

Of course, not everybody needs such an experience, or wants it. But, not everyone needs to go to college for free, either. A plan like Kerry's, or *heh* better yet, mine, intelligently implemented and run, could add a lot to the quality of life in this country, not to mention the quality of the teenagers.

Now... enough blue-sky theorizing...where the heck is that money gonna come from, John-boy, and how much is this plan gonna cost?