Thanks to Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and John McCain (R-AZ), and, more recently, President Bush, the signature New Democrat idea of national service is becoming an issue central to the national domestic policy debate. Both the Bayh-McCain and Bush Administration proposals focus primarily on full-time or half-time service opportunities, aimed especially at young people preparing for, attending, or graduating from college. Both favor a major expansion of the AmeriCorps program, President Clinton's initiative for full-time service, for a year or two, and both favor a major shift in the College Work-Study program toward community service rather than campus-based positions. Bayh-McCain also calls for a new "citizen soldier" short-term military service option.

Now Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) has announced plans to pursue another, highly complementary idea: a universal requirement that high school students perform community service as a degree requirement. He will soon introduce legislation to create a "Community Corps," offering federal grants to states and school systems that agree to create a service requirement and providing service opportunities.

Maryland is the only state that requires community service of all high school students, thanks to an initiative first developed by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Some individual schools have imposed such a requirement, including Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, which two of Sen. Edwards' children attended.

In fact, it was in a speech at Broughton last week that Edwards made his proposal. "It is time to encourage more states to develop service programs for students," he said. "It is not enough for students to study history. In Community Corps, high school students could make history by contributing to their community and their country."

Edwards' proposed legislation would authorize $65 million per year in competitive grants through the Corporation for National Service to states willing to design a universal service requirement. They would be required to develop a plan for creating new service opportunities, including integration of service into the school curriculum. In addition, the proposal would make $20 million available for local governments and school districts that want to pursue a service requirement in states that decide not to participate. In both cases, the federal government would pick up 75 percent of the costs in the first year of the program, a percentage that would decline to 50 percent in the fourth year.

Though the federal investment Edwards calls for is modest, it could definitely leverage a serious commitment to service across the country. Edwards estimates the first phase of the initiative could reach as many as 15 percent of high school students nationally.

While occasional service in K-12 schools should not become an alternative to, much less a substitute for, full-time service to the country, it could become a very valuable complement to the Bayh-McCain initiative and other efforts to expand national service. What makes the Edwards proposal especially attractive is its drive toward making service universal. Students attending schools where service is required for graduation will have early exposure to the ethic of mutual obligation that is at the core of the national service ideal, and practical experience in working toward the common good, often in projects organized by local non-profit organizations and other successful civic ventures.

We hope that Sen. Edwards' proposal provides another push to make this a "year of service" in Congress and around the country.