MAKE IT LAST FOREVER: THE ... - National Service Resource Center

Corporation for National Service, service-learning still remains peripheral to the education of most youth in America. The DOE
national survey of service-learning (Chapman, 1999) of 1832 schools indicates that only 32% of them have service-learning as part of
their curriculum. While this is a substantial increase since 1990, which is encouraging to many advocates, it still points to servicelearning
as a marginal pedagogy.
Currently, significant attention in schools and state departments of education is being placed on rethinking organizational
systems, rewriting content and performance standards, and instituting accountability systems, but far less attention is being placed on
how to promote quality teaching and learning. Educators, policy makers, and parents are primarily concerned with what students are
learning, and they want proof that this knowledge is being learned (standardized tests), but what is missing is the discussion about how
students learn and which teaching methods are most effective at catering to the diversity of learning styles among students. This
explains why few state departments of education have a pedagogy department, for example, and why most of them do not officially
endorse service-learning as a teaching method. And while more and more teacher education institutions are incorporating servicelearning
into pre-service programs, most teachers in America assume their first teaching assignment without knowing how to use
service-learning. Many who do know put it off a few years while they get used to the school environment; it is still viewed by them as
an approach to be attempted when one has the luxury of more time or reduced workload. Service-learning is still seen as a potential
problem by teachers (in terms of managing the logistics) rather than as a problem-solving strategy.
State Capacity to Embrace Service-Learning
A handful of states have fully embraced service-learning (or community service) over the last decade, and a handful allocate
state resources and personnel to ensure that service-learning becomes widespread and high quality for their students. The majority of
states, however, are only able to engage service-learning through distribution of CNS Learn and Serve grants. Without this federal
support, service-learning would likely have not been introduced to many states; furthermore, should this support disappear, many
states would not have the capacity to continue to support the approach. This is because most states view service-learning as a program
and not as a fundamental teaching strategy, and because there are not sufficient state-level advocates for the approach.
The Corporation for National Service
While the Corporation for National Service has been the major source of funding for service-learning throughout the country,
with its $43 million annual service-learning budget, these funds are spread very thinly. Within the Corporation, despite Learn and
Serve’s success, the funding has not increased for many years. Nevertheless, funding alone does not guarantee institutionalization by
any means. Most of the CNS funds that reach teachers are for direct costs associated with operating service learning projects;
resources for training and technical assistance, which can help to ensure sustainability, remain scarce. In addition, many subgrants
have been awarded over the years to schools, and even after three consecutive years or more of funding, many schools are not able or
willing to take those projects to scale for the entire school or throughout a given district. While additional funding would certainly
help matters (e.g., a full-time advocate in every state department of education), there are certainly other steps states and local schools
and districts can and do take to sustain service-learning without increased federal dollars or state personnel.
While the Corporation does support National Student Service Scholarships and recognizes National Service Learning Leader
Schools across the country, it has not been active in helping states to institutionalize service-learning. This responsibility is currently a
focus area of the state department of education Learn and Serve coordinators, who have organized themselves into a national state
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