[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5634-S5635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SERVICE IN AMERICA

 Mr. REED. Mr. President, in April, President Clinton with 
former Presidents Bush and Ford convened a Summit on Service in 
Philadelphia. They and other national leaders called upon young people 
to serve their communities and urged them to spread the spirit of 
service throughout the country.
  The Corporation for National Service [CNS] is among those advancing 
this spirit. Its mission, as my colleagues are well aware, is to help 
the country meet its educational, environmental, and public safety 
needs through service projects conducted and led by young people. The 
young people who participate in the AmeriCorps Program assist needy 
individuals, families, and their communities, while building their own 
self-esteem and earning grants to help them meet the financial costs of 
higher education.
  Since its inception, the Corporation for National Service has taken 
steps to address the charges of its critics by making necessary 
changes. Today, CNS fulfills its mandates successfully, efficiently, 
and cost effectively. In fact, a University of Minnesota study shows 
that AmeriCorps Programs in that State return $3.90 in benefits for 
every dollar spent. Studies in Washington State reveal a similar return 
on investment.
  When the Senate considers the reauthorization of the Corporation for 
National Service, I hope we will continue to foster the spirit of 
service that was celebrated in Philadelphia. To open the discussion, I 
ask my colleagues to take the time to read an article entitled ``The 
Value of Service,'' which appeared in the June edition of Government 
Executive magazine. This article offers, I believe, a balanced view of 
CNS's first 4 years. Mr. President, I ask that it be printed in the 
Record. The article follows:

                          The Value of Service

                            (By Annys Shin)

       These should be heady days for the Corporation for National 
     Service, the 4-year-old agency that oversees AmeriCorps, 
     President Clinton's pet program to give students financial 
     aid in exchange for a year of community service.
       In February, Clinton announced in his State of the Union 
     address that he would use thousands of AmeriCorps volunteers 
     to mobilize an army of reading tutors for grade-school 
     children. In March, CNS chief executive Harris Wofford got a 
     favorable reception on Capitol Hill when he testified before 
     the House and Senate on his agency's budget request. A month 
     later, he stood with President Clinton and former President 
     Bush at a summit meeting on national service in Philadelphia.
       All this just a year after AmeriCorps' budget was zeroed 
     out by the House (only to be restored later in negotiations 
     with the Senate) and Congress failed to bring CNS' 
     reauthorization up in committee.
       Still, CNS is still fighting to prove that its programs are 
     worth the $600 million a year taxpayers spend on them.
       President Clinton's proposed tutoring effort, known as the 
     America Reads Initiative, has further raised the stakes for 
     AmeriCorps and CNS. The Clinton administration has requested 
     $1 billion over the next five years to cover the costs of the 
     program and an additional 50,000 AmeriCorps Challenge 
     Scholarships. Any funding increase or new service initiative 
     can't go forward unless CNS is reauthorized by September, 
     according to a CNS spokesman.
       Since CNS is the Clinton administration's most significant 
     expansion of the federal bureaucracy, its leaders have been 
     meticulous since 1993 about measuring the results of their 
     programs to show that they work. Other federal operations 
     will soon follow suit, as the Government Performance and 
     Results Act of 1993 takes full effect, forcing agencies to 
     develop outcomes-based approaches to running their programs.
       However, few agencies are likely to face the relentless 
     criticism that CNS has from its Republican opponents, who see 
     the agency and its programs as little more than a political 
     boondoggle. So far, reams of positive data have not been 
     enough to get CNS out of the partisan cross hairs.


                         AmeriCorps Under Siege

       At the center of all the controversy is AmeriCorps, CNS' 
     flagship program. The agency administers two other service 
     programs, Learn and Serve and the Senior Corps, but neither 
     have received the scrutiny AmeriCorps has.
       CNS jointly administers AmeriCorps with 48 state 
     commissions, which vary in size. CNS gives half of AmeriCorps 
     grant funding to the state commissions, which then issue sub-
     grants to projects. CNS directly funds projects with the rest 
     of the money.
       AmeriCorps members are involved in a variety of activities, 
     including assisting crime victims, immunizing children, 
     restoring national parks, developing community-based health 
     care programs and setting up credit unions in low-income 
     communities. In return for a year's service, they get living 
     allowances of $7,600 a year, which can be supplemented by the 
     member's employer. They also receive an education award of 
     $4,725 to put toward paying off student loans or to finance 
     higher education or vocational training. Members can receive 
     living allowances and education grants for up to two terms of 
     service.
       Last year, the $215 million that AmeriCorps distributed in 
     the form of grants to states and direct funding of projects 
     went to 450 programs that operate at more than 1,000 sites 
     nationwide and employ 24,000 AmeriCorps members.
       None of AmeriCorps' critics have disputed the value of 
     building housing for low-income families or teaching children 
     to read. But some members of Congress question whether the 
     program's benefits are worth its cost to taxpayers.
       At many federal agencies, the cost-benefit calculation is 
     far from simple. The Government Performance and Results Act 
     is supposed to help by forcing agencies to come up with 
     strategic plans and to measure the results of their programs. 
     ``The Results Act is a major culture change for most 
     agencies,'' says Jerome F. Climer, president of the 
     Congressional Institute, a think tank that studies 
     governmental reforms.
       But at CNS, which was created the same year GPRA became 
     law, no such culture change is necessary. ``There was a 
     decision made early on in the program that AmeriCorps had to 
     be judged on the basis of what it actually accomplished, on 
     services delivered,'' says Steven Waldman, assistant managing 
     editor at U.S. News and World Report, who wrote The Bill 
     (Viking, 1995), a book about Clinton's effort to start a 
     national service program, and later served as Wofford's 
     senior policy adviser. ``It was not sufficient to have 
     anecdotal evidence that it was good for the AmeriCorps 
     members. We had to have proof that it was good for the 
     communities it was serving.''


                           Costs and Benefits

       But measuring community impact has proved to be easier said 
     than done. Older service programs such as the Peace Corps 
     have tended to focus more on participant benefits, in part 
     because the impact on participants is easier to gauge than 
     the effect on communities, says JoAnn Jastrzab of the Boston 
     research firm Abt Associates, who has studied some of 
     AmeriCorps' efforts.
       Last July, Jastrzab and her colleagues released the 
     findings of a 14-month study of the country's eight largest 
     and most-established youth conservation corps, which get 
     about a third of their funding through AmeriCorps. The study 
     was funded by CNS.
       Jastrzab followed participants in one Washington state 
     project who went out into fields armed with toothbrushes to 
     talk to migrant farm laborers about oral hygiene and to try 
     to persuade them to visit a local health clinic on a regular 
     basis. Other volunteers served as translators in the clinic. 
     These services may have raised the number of workers who 
     receive preventive care, and the eventual cost-savings of 
     such preventive care to taxpayers could be measured, Jastrzab 
     concluded, but documenting it could be costly and would 
     require a separate study.
       Nevertheless, after comparing operating costs to the value 
     of service provided and the gain in participant earnings in 
     the 15 months following service, Jastrzab and her colleagues 
     estimated that each hour of service youth corps members 
     performed resulted in $1.04 more in benefits than it cost to 
     employ them.
       Evaluators have come up with similar cost-benefit ratios 
     for other AmeriCorps programs. Researchers from the Northwest 
     Regional Educational Laboratory found that every federal 
     dollar invested in two Washington state AmeriCorps projects 
     yielded a return up to $2.40 in benefits. University of 
     Minnesota researchers found benefits up to $3.90 for each 
     federal dollar put into several Minnesota AmeriCorps 
     projects. CNS officials say such figures show taxpayers are 
     getting bang for the bucks AmeriCorps spends.
       CNS officials have also compiled lists of AmeriCorps 
     project accomplishments. The San Mateo, Calif.-based research 
     firm Aguirre International studied the program's first year 
     of service and put together a list of beneficiaries, which 
     included 10,000 children who were escorted to school through 
     safe corridors, more than 1,000 teen-agers who received 
     counseling about drug and alcohol abuse, more than 700 
     families who were able to move into new or refurbished homes, 
     apartment units or shelters, and more than 1,200 people with 
     AIDS who received services.


                            Tracking Results

       But whether this laundry list of good deeds translates into 
     long-term impact is another story. AmeriCorps participants, 
     says Lance Potter, director of evaluation at CNS, ``are 
     people who are out there to solve the problem of homelessness 
     or to teach every child to read. They don't have goals that 
     you can reach in a year.''
       However, social scientists say that the long-term effect of 
     service programs can be

[[Page S5635]]

     measured through studies that track, for example, literacy 
     rates in areas where AmeriCorps members serve as reading 
     tutors. Such studies are being designed, Potter says. In 
     September, research firm Aguirre International is slated to 
     issue a report on the long-term impact of AmeriCorps' 
     programs.
       Tracking the benefits of service work on the people who 
     join AmeriCorps is also a challenge. As with gauging a 
     project's community impact, economists and social scientists 
     have yet to slap a price tag on boosting participants' self-
     esteem, raising their job aspirations, or increasing the 
     likelihood that they will volunteer in the future.
       Adding another wrinkle to measuring benefits to 
     participants is AmeriCorps members' demographics. Programs 
     such as the Youth Corps recruit mostly among disadvantaged 
     youth. When comparing kids who participate in Youth Corps to 
     a group of their peers who didn't, gains in educational 
     attainment or work experience show up clearly. But in 
     evaluating AmeriCorps members, who are recruited regardless 
     of socio-economic status and tend to be older, more educated 
     and better off than Youth Corps members, the benefits to 
     participants are sometimes less dramatic.
       An Abt Associates study of Youth Corps programs found they 
     did little to boost the incomes or job opportunities of white 
     male participants when compared to white males who didn't 
     perform a year of service. Black and Hispanic participants, 
     on the other hand, made more money and got better jobs than 
     their non-service counterparts.
       The findings reflect a better job market for white males, 
     says Jastrzab, not a detrimental effect of service. But 
     without detailed explanation, the finding gave the appearance 
     of failure.
       ``When the findings come around to showing different 
     impacts on young people by race, then CNS wants to distance 
     itself from that,'' says Andy Moore, a spokesman for the 
     National Association of Service Conservation Corps. ``This 
     study was publicized in spite of CNS, not because of it.''
       When there really is bad news about a AmeriCorps-backed 
     project, it doesn't necessarily mean the project loses its 
     funding. But projects that show no interest in completing 
     evaluations at all probably will be cut off, according to 
     Potter.
       After its first year, CNS defunded only 50 AmeriCorps 
     grantees, and only 20 in its second year. ``We don't want to 
     be in the business of punishing programs for finding out that 
     they have shortcomings,'' Potter says. ``If we do that, we 
     send the message that we don't provide an incentive for them 
     to look hard at their program and find ways to improve it.''
       In order for an outcome-based approach to work ``there must 
     be consequences,'' argues the Congressional Institute's 
     Climer. ``Poorly performing programs must be repaired.'' 
     There also have to be rewards for improvements, he says.
       AmeriCorps' critics have kept CNS officials keenly aware of 
     what will happen if the agency doesn't meet their 
     expectations. This spring, AmeriCorps' congressional critics 
     were disappointed by what they saw as the agency's lack of 
     improvement in management practices and cost control, and 
     renewed threats to kill the program if it doesn't make 
     significant strides over the next year.
       Such threats carry greater urgency in the current climate 
     of deficit reduction.
       ``One of the greatest difficulties that we have is that 
     [AmeriCorps'] funds compete directly with dollars for federal 
     housing programs, veterans benefits, the space program, 
     natural disaster relief and more than a dozen other federal 
     agencies,'' says David Lestrang, an aide to Rep. Jerry Lewis, 
     R-Calif, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee 
     that has jurisdiction over the CNS budget. ``It all comes 
     down to a matter of priority. I know this is a priority for 
     the administration but they have to weigh it against other 
     priorities. For Congress, the jury is still out on 
     AmeriCorps.''
       ``If you focused entirely on the cost, you could justify 
     killing any program if you never looked at the benefits,'' 
     counters Waldman.


                               Dual Goals

       The question of whether CNS' programs are cost-effective 
     depends largely on how you define its goals.
       In the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, 
     the agency's mission is defined as helping ``the nation meet 
     its unmet human, education, environmental and public safety 
     needs.'' But President Clinton also sold AmeriCorps as a way 
     for young people to earn money for college.
       Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a vocal AmeriCorps 
     critic, doesn't dispute the benefits of its programs. But he 
     questions whether it is an efficient way to help kids get to 
     college.
       Grassley ``has no problem with the work AmeriCorps 
     volunteers are doing-it's valuable work,'' says Jill Kozeny, 
     one of his aides. ``He has a problem with the huge burly cost 
     structure.''
       Grassley has commissioned several General Accounting Office 
     studies of CNS operations. Two years ago, a GAO study he 
     ordered concluded that the agency was expending about $17,000 
     in resources on each AmeriCorps participant. Adding state, 
     local and private support for the program, GAO pegged average 
     resources per participant at $26,654. Grassley said this 
     figure was way too high. He also blasted CNS for giving 
     grants to other federal agencies and not garnering more 
     private support for projects.
       CNS officials say it's unfair to include other federal, 
     state, local government, and private contributions when 
     estimating program costs. But last year CNS chief executive 
     Harris Wofford said he would implement a plan to require 
     grantees with above average per-participant costs to lower 
     them by 10 percent in the next grant cycle. Wofford also 
     agreed to end funding to other federal agencies, which had 
     totaled $12 million a year for programs such as WritersCorps, 
     a tutoring program underwritten by the National Endowment for 
     the Arts. And he said he would raise requirements for 
     matching private funds from 25 percent to 33 percent of a 
     grantee's budgets. Grassley then helped save AmeriCorps 
     funding for another year.
       In March of this year, Grassley and others found more 
     fodder for discontent in another GAO report on the role of 
     state commissions in administering AmeriCorps. The report 
     included costs, attrition rates, and rates of educational 
     award usage among several AmeriCorps projects. One project, 
     the Casa Verde Builders Program in Texas, had an attrition 
     rate of more than 50 percent and cost $2.5 million, half of 
     which came directly from CNS. Grassley's office estimated 
     costs for the program at close to $100,000 per participant.
       ``We have to look at whether this program is the most cost-
     effective way to help people go to college,'' Grassley said 
     on NBC Nightly News shortly after the report came out.
       Wofford protests that AmeriCorps is not simply a 
     scholarship program, but a national service one as well.
       That is exactly what bothers some of AmeriCorps' critics, 
     who say that the federal government shouldn't be in business 
     of promoting service. Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., 
     abhors the idea that AmeriCorps members are in essence ``paid 
     to volunteer,'' according to one of his aides, Fred Greer. 
     ``The aim is worthy,'' Greer says. ``But why does it have to 
     be a public program from the start?"
       AmeriCorps supporters counter that federal investment is a 
     vital catalyst to boosting community service and a necessary 
     incentive for overworked citizens to volunteer.
       Still, even the most ardent AmeriCorps supporters are 
     starting to concede that the non-government sectors have a 
     bigger role to play in national service. At the April summit 
     on service in Philadelphia, Clinton proposed the creation of 
     50,000 new AmeriCorps Challenge grants that would allow 
     AmeriCorps to add 33,000 members over five years. The new 
     grants would only cover the education award; private and 
     nonprofit organizations would pick up the tab for other 
     program costs and living expenses.
       ``We're extremely open-minded to ideas from all parts of 
     the political spectrum on how to make national service 
     work,'' Waldman said in an interview before he left the 
     agency. ``Outside of Washington, AmeriCorps is much more a 
     nonpartisan issue.''
       Congressional opposition puts CNS officials in a bind, 
     because they're forced to be accountable for the 
     effectiveness of projects that they don't directly run, half 
     of which they don't even choose to fund. ``Congress set it up 
     this way and if they believe in it they ought to take it 
     seriously,'' Waldman said. ``It puts us in a ridiculous 
     position: Congress wants us to not have any control but hold 
     us accountable.''

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