Should high schools require community service?

[constantIllusion]

<p>

What about the poor kids who have to work to support thier families? What about high schools with a 50% dropout rate? Is it in the public interest to add one more thing to a HS duty list when they aren’t able to teach the kids to read and write?</p>

<p>btw: college adcoms discount CS when a school or district requires it.

</p>

<p>In order to graduate from high school, I had to do 20 hours of community service as a part of my Participation in Government class. Luckily for us, we were allowed to choose from a list our community service activities. I chose to work at the downtown YMCA helping sign children up for swim classes during spring recess. It was great, I got my first taste of community service (I came from an impoverished background, so any work I did beforehand was paid work), and I developed a desire to work with children . No harm was done by this requirement, if anything it makes for a better student since it shows the community that H.S. students aren’t spoiled brats that have everything handed to them. Too bad the colleges I applied to never heard about my community service stint, since I took P.I.G. during my last semester of H.S.</p>