Over at Politico, TAPPED's dearly departed Ben Adler reports on the growing, bipartisan movement in favor of increasing opportunities for national service. Chris Dodd's proposal to increase AmeriCorps funding to accommodate 1 million young volunteers annually is wonderful. I'm consistently amazed by the number of high-achieving college graduates I know who are rejected from AmeriCorps programs. So while I support making service more accessible, I do want to add this caveat: We must think carefully about which jobs we give to low-paid, inexperienced young people, and which we reserve for seasoned professionals. Teach for America, an AmeriCorps member, is often lauded as a model for national service. Its acceptance rate, around 17 percent, rivals that of Ivy League universities and indeed, on elite college campuses, the TFA application process can grip seniors like a fever. Yet there's little evidence to show that inexperienced 23-year olds are effective teachers in high-poverty classrooms. We know, in fact, that the opposite is true: More experienced, higher-paid teachers are needed in struggling schools. TFA can impart on its participants a lifetime commitment to public education. But just as often, it burns young people out and shuffles them off to law school. It's not surprising that conservatives are more willing to sign off on national service funding than they are to support broad-based government policies attacking urban poverty, integrating schools, and providing all kids with a great education. That would be far more expensive, and transformative. --Dana Goldstein
