In the next 10 years, more than 60 percent of the federal work force and 90 percent of federal senior executives will be eligible to retire. These are the stealth backbone of the United States. Stealth — because too few people appreciate what they do; backbone — because they support the infrastructure of our country. In a quiet fashion, they develop policy, set up procedures, carry out legislation, craft and then implement guidelines, and collect and distribute resources. In other words, bring in taxes and then disburse the money they have gathered up.
They work for every executive and administrative agency — Department of Defense, State, Health & Human Resources, Treasury, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, NIH, NEA, NEH, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Post Office, IRS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Park Service, and the list goes on. Don’t forget, federal employees also work for members of the U.S. Congress and the members of the Federal Judiciary. In all, nearly 17 million people get a federal paycheck (this number includes members of the military services) — and they live in every state in the union and abroad — far from the U.S. Capitol.
Replacing these impending retirees with the best and the brightest is a national challenge. Government work is sometimes mistakenly seen as a sinecure, often perceived to be unrewarding and, in general, is misunderstood. In fact, it is a noble profession, a service to one’s country, a challenging and important way to earn a living, a vital undertaking and a source of engaging opportunities. I once worked as an attorney for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; as an aide to a Congressman (Hon. John Brademas from South Bend, Indiana and later New York University’s president); and as special assistant to the U.S. Commissioner of Education (before it was a Cabinet position — the Honorable Harold “Doc” Howe II). I thoroughly enjoyed all three tours of duty. Worked hard, learned much, gave it my all, and don’t regret a minute of it.
The other day I had the privilege of participating on a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to discuss a proposed piece of legislation known as the U.S. Public Service Academy Act (S.960 & H.R.1671) that currently has bipartisan support from 15 cosponsors in the U.S. Senate and 83 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The idea behind this initiative, ably advocated by Dr. Chris Myers Asch, is to establish a civilian counterpart to the military service academies, essentially setting up a federally subsidized kind of West Point to grow government executives the way that the academies do military officers. Once in place, this four-year undergraduate experience would provide 5,000 matriculants a tuition-free education in exchange for five years of post graduation mandatory government service. Like the military academies, the public service academy (PSA) would have a structured academic program. Its sponsors propose that its core curriculum would emphasize service learning, and international education with requirements for study abroad, public service internships, and leadership development activities year round. PSA graduates would be placed in public sector jobs in areas of critical need and/or positions of strategic importance in fields ranging from education and health care to law enforcement and emergency management.
In addition to Dr. Asch (a co-founder of the proposed U.S. Public Service Academy) and myself, we had with us on the AEI panel, John Bridgeland, president of Civic Ventures (former head of USA Freedom Corps) and Robert Tobias, the director of public sector executive education at American University.
The debate was spirited with strongly held views on both sides. Dr. Asch, who put the operating cost of the academy at $205-million a year, believes the investment modest, given his goal of cultivating a replacement force for the retiring federal baby-boomers now in public service. I was one dissenting voice, characterizing the proposal as “a bad idea terribly well advocated.” I do not believe that the case for the academy has been made.
Have we demonstrated that federal, state, county, and municipal governments are presently not sufficiently attractive to the best and the brightest? If the answer is “yes,” then is a public-service academy the appropriate response? Perhaps more direct steps to make government a more enticing employer would be cheaper and also more effective. I am told the stumbling blocks are compensation, mobility, and working conditions. Better salaries might offer a partial solution. Money talks. And concern was expressed that the government hiring process is too slow, too daunting, and too accommodating to seniority.
Have the proposed costs of Dr. Asch’s proposal been fully vetted? I believe that Dr. Asch’s numbers may underestimate what could lie ahead. For example, the expenses of the military academies are in excess of $400,000 per year per student. The government — the taxpayers — presently pay the costs for all expenses and also compensate the students at the military academies while they are enrolled.
At what level would this post-PSA service be performed and at what cost? Surely, recent graduates would do no better than those attracted now to internship positions from America’s 3000+ colleges and universities. And arguably less well than Presidential Management Interns, which are far less pricey.
How, I wonder, would one ensure that graduates of the PSA would get jobs in areas of need and/or positions of strategic importance without setting aside veterans preferences, or civil service opportunities, not to mention the entire merit system of government employment. Would these graduates become “special exceptions?” It has been proposed that the graduates of the PSA provide half a decade of mandatory post-commencement service. A review of the data on graduates of the military academies indicates that many leave the services upon completing their five years of post-graduation obligations. If we expect graduates of the Public Service Academy to stay on the job longer, government must become as attractive a workplace or more hospitable an environment than can be found in the private sector.
When one looks at military leaders, one finds significant numbers from ROTC programs at colleges and universities nationwide, and that creates a model much more attractive than the establishment of an elitist PSA institution. The military is a defined profession — requiring highly focused training — whereas civil servants are drawn from all disciplines: the humanities, sciences and social sciences, from engineering, business, and virtually every specialty known to academia. Thus a congregationalist solution to Dr. Asch’s agenda is far more attractive and sensible and it permits education and training of potential public servants in all the 50 states rather than at a single venue.
Moreover, it seems to me unsound for an initiative of this sort to focus on undergraduates and expect them to enter government service in a management position. Do we really want youngsters directly out of high school specializing in service and leadership as students rather than academic disciplines? Wouldn’t it be preferable to attract people to government who have majored in mathematics, chemistry, international affairs, foreign languages? As with ROTC programs, there are many existing higher-education institutions in America that presently prepare people for careers in public service at the graduate level: schools of public policy and public administration. Wouldn’t we be better of responding to the challenge Dr. Asch has presented by subsidizing those attending those institutions, and perhaps enriching the curriculum rather than by building a single place-based institution?
What about the faculty and staff for the academy? I think it is fair to argue that the service academies vary in quality. In other words, some are better than others, at football as well as academics. Some employ instructors from prior cadres of their students. Some have a significant number of civilians on the faculty who, if they wish, could compete for faculty posts at first-class civilian universities.
How would the proposed PSA attract serious faculty members from the wide variety of disciplines? Would they, themselves, be civil-service employees like those at the military academies and the War Colleges? How would free inquiry and academic freedom be protected? Would the professors have tenure? How would their salaries be determined — by civil-service levels or from marketplace competition? Would the public-service academy and its faculty be eligible for outside philanthropy, for federal research dollars? If not, how would world-class instructors be attracted and kept? And, who would the administrative leaders be? Who gets to pick the president of the PSA and on what basis? Would staff be people from within the government or outside? Who would select them? Ultimately, who would define and oversee the mission and quality of the public service academy?
It is also fair to ask what will be the capital costs of an academy? One could speculate several billion dollars at a minimum, not including the cost of land. Who will pay for the buildings, laboratories, and libraries, the classroom residence halls and the athletic facilities? There are vast initial structural expenses along with the annual operating budgets that accompany this proposal.
Mr. Tobias saw virtue in the bonding effect that an academy would have, creating a phalanx of focused persons, and Mr. Bridgeland argued that the academy was one of the “most transformative and boldest ideas from the perspective of uniting a culture of service in a generation.” He went on to say, “it would give civilian service an equal standing to military service and might even infuse in the boarder culture a sense of giving back.”
We are indebted to Dr. Asch and the others who favor the Public Service Academy for raising an important issue. My critical perspective of this proposal is a build or buy situation. We are being asked to build what we can buy more modestly elsewhere. But that should not discourage us from keeping focused on the agenda. One can disagree with Chris Asch without dismissing his important thinking.
(Image from Photobucket.)
