Youth Corps: Strategies for Young People

About one-third of America's youth – and more than half of minority youth – drop out of high school before graduation. Many of these young people have few skills that could provide them a place in the labor market. These "disconnected youth" are detached from any institution that could provide them with a path to a successful future.

As previously cited in this column, research by the Community Service Society (CSS) has revealed that there are about 170,000 young people ages 16 to 24 in New York City who are neither in school nor in the work force. However, this is not just a New York City problem - the National League of Cities puts the number of "disconnected youth" across the nation between 5 and 6 million.

Enormous talent, intelligence, and positive energy are being wasted as these young people are left behind. This is damaging both to our communities and to the competitive strength of our country in a global economy.

Service and Conservation Corps

One response to this situation is the Service and Conservation Corps, a national network of over 21,000 young men and women, ages 16 to 25, engaged in full-time service in 41 states. Over 600,000 young Americans have served in the Corps since its inception in 1985. The majority of members come to the Corps looking for a second chance to succeed in life.

The Corps provides members with a modest stipend for their service along with job training, education, and life skills development, all geared toward career preparation. Members work in crews supervised by adult mentors. In 2006 alone, they performed almost 12 million hours of service.

The dual aim of the Corps is to reconnect youth to society and, in doing so, to improve communities. The Corps is a direct descendent of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), developed during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Over three million young men in the CCC – out of work and school – created 800 state parks and built 125,000 miles of roads and thousands of bridges, creating a legacy of hope and many landmarks that we still enjoy and use today.

Talent, energy of
young being wasted

As their predecessors did in the CCC, Corps members provide valuable conservation and infrastructure improvements. Some improve the quality of life in low-income communities by renovating deteriorated housing, doing environmental cleanup, creating parks and gardens, and staffing after-school programs.

Who are these Corps members? More than half of the current 21,000 members are Black and Latino. Their average age is 20. More than half did not graduate from high school. Half come from families with income less than the federal poverty level; 10 percent were previously in foster care. Nearly one-third had some court involvement.

An evaluation conducted by Abt Associates/Brandeis University underscored the value of the Corps for communities and participants. The report documents that positive outcomes are particularly striking for young African-American men. Arrest rates drop by one-third among all Corps members. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy rates drop among female Corps members.

These are young people whose lives have been changed by their service in the Corps. They have discovered the ethic of service to others. Many are going back to school to get their diploma and pursue a career.

Unlike the CCC, the modern Corps does not yet have a dedicated source of federal funds. It is dependent on a combination of federal, state, county, and municipal grants as well as donations from the private sector. The next step on the agenda is a reauthorization of funding from the federal government for the Corps.

A Transportation Corps

There are other ideas along the lines of the Service and Conservation Corps that could provide even greater opportunities for service for America's youth. New York Congressman Jerry Nadler has suggested a novel approach: using our untapped pool of young adults to help build the nation's transportation infrastructure. It was the topic of discussion at CSS's "Working or Change" Forum on October 19 on Capitol Hill.

The "Working for Change" Forum is a monthly series convening legislative staff, policy advocates, and academicians to forge consensus on an economic mobility agenda for low-wage workers. The goal is to increase workers' wages and improve workplace benefits. The forum is sponsored in collaboration with the Coalition on Human Needs and coordinated by CSS Senior Fellow Dr. William Spriggs, Chairman of the Howard University Department of Economics.

The featured speakers at the October 19 forum were former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater and Sally Prouty, president and CEO of the Corps Network. Rodney Slater spoke about the opportunity to create a national Transportation Corps in the context of the massive Surface Transportation Act reauthorization scheduled for 2009. Given the poor state of much of America's transportation infrastructure, a Transportation Corps could furnish many jobs for disconnected youth while providing a safer, more efficient, environmentally sound and sustainable transportation infrastructure.

Before her appointment as president and CEO of The Corps Network, Sally Prouty served seven years as Director of the Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps (OCCC). Under her leadership, OCCC enrolled both middle class young men and women in a traditional Conservation Corps model and also unemployed young adults in a program focused on conservation based service-learning and youth development. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor recognized OCCC as one of ten effective youth initiatives in the nation, and in 2002 the Annie E. Casey Foundation recognized OCCC as "one of the premier youth programs in the nation" for effectively serving youth exiting the juvenile justice system.

These youth corps provide opportunities for many of America's young people who were drifting without an adequate education or job skills. In return, we get a young workforce that contributes to the betterment of our country. It is working for the Service and Conservation Corps. It can also work for a Transportation Corps. All we need is the political will to make it happen.

From the New York Amsterdam News
November 1 – 7, 2007