Service for
Far from being a
distraction, service
learning can help
students build academic
skills while they become
more involved in the
community.
Rahima Wade
Photo courtesy of hal smith/sedalia democrat
Fourth graders Julie Morrison and Saige Peterson started a literacy campaign for families
at Heber Hunt Elementary School in Sedalia, Missouri.
Saige Peterson and Julie Mor- rison, along with their 4th grade classmates at Heber Hunt Elementary School in Sedalia, Missouri, started
a literacy campaign with a closet full
of used books. Their Trade-a-Book
program invited students in the school
to add a book to the collection and take
one with them to read. Building on this success, the 4th
graders became reading buddies for kindergartners at their
school and then wrote a request for a small grant to purchase
board books for newborn babies and their families at the
Bothwell Regional Health Center. The elementary students
also wrote letters to accompany the books, extolling the
virtues of reading.
Saige and Julie’s literacy campaign is an exemplar of community service learning, a teaching strategy in which students
use their academic skills and knowledge to meet school or
community needs. Community service learning has been
widely acknowledged as a promising approach for enhancing
students’ academic, social, and civic development and
strengthening a school’s connections with the community.
Yet the prevalence of service learning in U.S. schools
decreased during the past decade. One recent survey of more
than 2,000 K– 12 public school principals revealed that only
24 percent of their schools include service learning experi-
ences in the curriculum, compared with 32 percent in 1999
(Spring, Grimm, & Dietz, 2008). Why the decrease? Only
12 percent of the principals said that they believed service
learning could increase academic achievement in core
subjects.
Service Learning and Academic Achievement
Academic achievement has always been a centerpiece in
public schools, but never as much as during the No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) era. NCLB has spawned an array of practices
aimed at improving students’ test scores, particularly in literacy and math. High-stakes assessments have driven schools
to adopt a rigorous and focused approach to reading, writing,
and math instruction that takes up the majority of the day in
