You've got your U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, and your U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. Those, my fellow Americans, are our national service academies.
Now consider one more: the U.S. Public Service Academy - same model, except no weapons, no boats and, as far as I know, no buzz cuts on the first day of school.
The USPSA. This is not a reality, of course. It's just an idea, the brainchild of two public-spirited guys, 30-something veterans of Teach For America who think the country - and Barack Obama - could make a bold and lasting statement about our national priorities by establishing such an institution.
Chris Myers Asch and his buddy, Shawn Raymond, came up with the USPSA. They've established a nonprofit in Washington to promote the idea and seem to be effective in doing so. They've taken it to Congress and had several senators, including Maryland's, endorse it. They are making another push this year and are more optimistic about getting funds for the USPSA with Obama in the White House.
"In a nutshell," Asch says, "we want to build a civilian counterpart to the military service academies. The Public Service Academy would be a four-year, federally subsidized college modeled on the military academies but focused on public service. Students would get a free undergraduate education, following a liberal arts curriculum focused on service and leadership. In return, they would be required to serve for five years in public sector jobs following graduation. They would be placed in areas of critical need and positions of strategic importance at the local, state and federal levels."
Part of the idea, says Asch, is to present public service as a noble undertaking to a new generation that has grown up with the message that government is a problem, not a solution. For nearly three decades, men and women with brains and talent have been advised to avoid government careers and seek fortune and prestige in the private sector. As a result, Asch believes, there has been a brain drain that has resulted in less effective government and a lost sense of selfless service as a part of citizenship. Asch comes from a public service family - his dad in the U.S. Foreign Service, his mom a civilian doctor with the Army. He volunteered for Teach For America and spent three years teaching fifth- and sixth-graders at a school in Sunflower, Miss., a town with a population of 800. Raymond was his roommate in those years. After Teach For America, they created the nonprofit Sunflower County Freedom Project to help kids from rural Mississippi get into college. They tutored students, gave them college guidance, took them on campus visits - anything to encourage boys and girls toward higher education. At its peak, they served about 50 kids.
