The Seattle Times: Imagine an America where all youth commit to national service
BY BOB WATT & JOHN STANTON, May 19, 2019
Our country faces urgent challenges, from 4.6 million young people disconnected from jobs and school, to an opioid epidemic that kills more than 130 Americans every day. Right here in Seattle we face an affordable-housing crisis, working families that can’t afford to feed their children and a high school dropout rate that remains stubbornly above one-in-five. Instead of fighting together to solve these challenges, we have become more and more divided as a country, and Americans increasingly doubt that we can ever come together again.
We believe there is a solution, one that can have a measurable positive impact on all these challenges while also bringing us together as a country: We should work to make national service an optional — but expected — choice and opportunity for all young Americans.
