Both Compacts are sponsored by the Education Commission of the States, which held its annual meeting in Providence. Secretary of Education Richard Riley helped to unveil the new service learning organization along with officials from some of the 14 states that are charter members. Department studies of service learning, Riley said, show that students who volunteer in service projects do better academically and that students want to be involved in their communities.

Indiana State Superintendent Suellen Reed, chair of the new organization, said the first step is just to ask students to help out. "Ninety-three percent of those who are asked to serve do so, but only 24 percent volunteer if there is no organized way of involving them," she said. Sheldon Berman, superintent of the Hudson, Mass., schools where 80 percent of the students are involved in service learning, told a press conference that his students "are hungry for a sense of connection and service learning is a key to helping them connect."

Riley said this is an opportune time to launch the K-12 Compact because of the current efforts to involve volunteers in tutoring children in reading. He noted the Administration has requested $50 million for after-school, weekend, and summer programs that will need volunteers.

The new Compact will provide a clearinghouse about service learning, bring leaders and participants together in meetings, and create public awareness of the importance of service by children and young people. "It also will be a voice in the policy world," predicted Frank Newman, president of ECS, who anticipates that all states will sign on to the Compact eventually. The Campus Compact, he noted, began with only eight colleges and now includes 500 member campuses.

The youth service community has long felt it was on the outside of schools, thought of more as an elective activity than a central theme in education. The Compact, however, will stress service learning, which focuses on integrating service experiences into core subjects as hands-on application of knowledge. Maryland is the only state that requires community service for graduation, but many local districts or schools have mandatory service. Studies show that a high percentage of non-public schools require community service.

Charter members of the K-12 Compact include representatives from Texas, Indiana, Massachusetts, Delaware, Wisconsin, Kentucky, California, Maryland, West Virginia, South Carolina, Connecticut, Illinois, Arizona, and Washington State.