
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 20, 1990                   TAG: 9004200706
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHEN `VOLUNTARY' SERVICE IS ASSIGNED

AMERICANS are proud of their individualism and individual rights, but most people agree that each one is part of a community. We benefit from this interrelation in many ways, and one indication of good citizenship is the desire to give something back to the community. This is the basis for voluntary community service.

We should all be proud that there has been a surge in volunteering (see this newspaper April 2). However, when community service is made a high-school requirement (story March 26), it becomes another issue. Both result in work accomplished which benefits the community, but when it is required, the desire to help is missing and that is one of the most important elements in community service.

One reason given for the requirement is public relations (so elderly can see a benefit from the schools). Senior citizens who have children have seen the benefits of public education - could the real motive be less resistance to paying increasingly higher taxes to support a system that lacks any accountability?

The other reason given is that it teaches teen-agers about the real world. Ironically, we hear over and over from the school system that if we want to see what the real world is like, we should visit the schools. Where is the real world - out here, or in there?

Forced community service has historically been reserved as punishment for white-collar criminals, a way of making restitution for crimes against society. Where does the school system get the right to pre-empt our judicial system and require community service for graduation? What will this do to the self-esteem of our teen-agers when part of their graduation requirement is something that has long been used as a form of punishment? NANCY HUBBARD FLOYD

by CNB