Hi all,

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia will be introducing the Academy bill within the next few days.   According to this post at The Underground Conservative, however, the provision to create the U.S. Public Service Academy was already introduced as a part of H.R. 1388, the GIVE Act, which passed in the House last week.

Unfortunately, this was not the case.  While we at the Public Service Academy strongly support the GIVE Act—we’re a member of the coalition behind the SERVE America Bill, the Senate version of the national service bill—the creation of the Academy was not mandated as part of the bill.  The Public Service Academy Act will be introduced separately, although the Academy would be a logical next step to reinvigorate public service after the national service act is passed.

Just as the national service bills aims to empower youth for a lifetime of volunteerism, the Academy will develop the next generation of career leaders in local, state, and national government. The most pressing national challenges that we face, from education to health care to energy, will take place in the public sector, and they must be tackled by full-time, long-term public servants. Volunteers cannot be expected to serve as substitutes for strong, effective public employees serving in our government.

In other words, supporters of the GIVE and SERVE America Act—who do want to reinvigorate all aspects of service, and believe in supporting some of the same community and public institutions that volunteers can help strengthen—should also be behind the Public Service Academy.

Doubly unfortunately, the post also blatantly mischaracterized the Public Service Academy as a “ACORN version of West Point…with multiple campuses, which would conduct the mandatory training.”  Well…no, not exactly—not, actually, at all.

The Public Service Academy, which would be one flagship campus, would not be training volunteers, as the post suggests.  As mentioned above, the Academy will be training youth who will likely go into public service as a life-long career.  More importantly, the Academy is not—as the unsubstantiated and completely untrue association with ACORN suggests—an ideological project.  The idea of training good government leaders is not a party issue; better government is not a partisan goal.  The mission of the Public Service Academy is to benefit all Americans by making government better run and more efficient—and that’s why we need support from all Americans, regardless of political identification.