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Policy Review, Mar/Apr 1997 by Miller, D W

Groups to Watch A Study on Civic Renewal

The renewal of "civic engagement" will receive a thorough scholarly look from a new commission chaired by William Bennett and former senator Sam Nunn. The National Commission on Civic Renewal has set out to "to assess the condition of civic engagement in the United States today and to propose specific actions-to be undertaken by the public, private, and voluntary sectors as well as by individuals-that could improve this condition." The commission will issue a report later this year with these suggestions after holding several fact-finding sessions with scholars and community leaders.

To accomplish its task, the group plans to "assemble important scholarly and practical work already under way around the country on the revitalization of citizenship and civic life, and inspire new benchmark studies on the current condition of our citizenship and civic life; spark discussion and deliberation across traditional barriers such as party affiliation, ideology, and race; reach consensus on clear, practical, and dramatic recommendations for enhancing the quality of citizenship and civic life; inspire the creation of new institutions and alliances that can carry these efforts forward after the Commission's work is done."

The group's executive director will be William A. Galston, a former policy adviser to President Clinton and the director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland at College Park, where the commission will be headquartered. Its members include clergymen, university professors, corporate executives, and the leaders of community nonprofits. The National Commission on Civic Renewal-tel.: 301-405-2790, fax: 301-3149346, Web site: http://puaf.umd.edu/civicrenewal. New Education Reform Group The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, of Dayton, Ohio, announced last fall that it had appointed Chester E. Finn Jr., an education scholar with the Hudson Institute, to head its initiative to "renew elementary and secondary education" in America. The foundation will pursue the improvement of schools through advocacy of high academic standards with verifiable outcomes, school vouchers, charter schools, content-based core curricula, and public disclosure of schools' performance. The foundation's first project will be a series of research papers that compares and evaluates each state's academic performance standards in particular subject areas. The foundation will also be working to improve education specifically in the Dayton area.

- Thomas B. Fordham Foundation-tel.: 202-223-5452, Web site: http://www.edexcellence. net. Scholarships a School at a Time

"A Better Choice" (ABC) is the name of a new private scholarship group in Albany, New York, with an usual proposal: ABC is offering schoolchoice scholarships to every student at Giffen Elementary School, a low-performing school in Albany, to use at a private school of their choice. The fund claims to be the first privately funded scholarship program in the country to offer grants to the entire student body of a school. Students who take the offer will receive 50 percent of the cost of private or parochial school tuition, up to $1,000, for three years or until they leave elementary school. The group also offers three-year scholarships, on a lottery basis, to students at poor schools in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, New York. The group is the brainchild of philanthropist Virginia Gilder, who would provide more than $1 million if every Giffen student accepted a scholarship.

- ABC is a project of the Empire Foundation for Policy Research-tel.: 518-383-2977. School Voucher Update The National Scholarship Center has released Just Doing It 3, its third annual survey of the precollege private scholarship movement. From a single program launched in Indianapolis in 1991, according to the report, the movement had grown to 30 programs across the country by last fall. The funds now give more than 10,000 pupils, mostly from low-income families at poor schools, the chance to attend a private school. Scholarships generally average about $900 per student, totaling about $8.5 million for the 1995-96 school year. The biggest programs are in Milwaukee, where 4,300 students used the grants, and San Antonio and Indianapolis, with about 1,000 each.

All these measures are on the rise, although for the first time, the NSC reports that several groups have folded for lack of money, while other groups have stopped expanding the number of students they serve. The annual report is not exhaustive of all the private scholarship funds, but confines itself to those meeting certain criteria: independent, privately funded scholarships for precollege tuition that offer low-income recipients a broad choice of schools and that require a copayment from their families. National Scholarship Center-tel.: 202842-1355. What Works Attacking Juvenile Crime According to the Council on Crime in America, crimes committed by boys aged 14 to 17 will increase by 23 percent between 1995 and 2000. If recent trends continue, much of these crimes will be violent. Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida has introduced a bill in Congress to address the problem of juvenile crime. In a recent Heritage paper, James Wootton and Robert O. Heck, however, note that juvenile crime is primarily a state and local responsibility, and suggest three policies to help address the looming crisis. They urge states to try all juveniles who commit heinous crimes as adults and to enact truth-in-sentencing laws to ensure that violent offenders serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. In addition, the authors propose that states and localities integrate innovative community police work with the efforts of community leaders and other agencies in the criminaljustice system. And they applaud efforts to target and track serious habitual offenders, including juveniles, through SHOCAP, or Serious Habitual Offenders Comprehensive Action Program. SHOCAP combines sophisticated data collection and crime analysis with community police work to identify and track teenage criminals who are habitually violent. The key component is cooperation, among both all local agencies that deal with juveniles offenders-probation and parole offices, juvenile court, social services, schools, prosecutors, and public housing-and also among state and local agencies that collect and analyze data on arrests and incarceration. AP "How State and Local Officials Can Combat Violent Juvenile Crime, "State backgrounder No. 1097, by James Wootton and Robert O. Heck, The Heritage Foundationtel.: 1-800-544-4843, Web site: http:// www.heritage. com. Enviro-Capitalists