Another Academy Idea
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 10:48 AM
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 10:48 AM
Apparently, 'tis the season for ideas to create new service academies for federal civilians. Not only is the proposal for a Public Service Academy moving along smartly on Capitol Hill, now radio talk show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt is pushing a plan for a National Intelligence Academy. Here's his pitch:
Given a chance to mandate the four year course of studies, the intelligence community would soon be welcoming graduates of such an academy into their professional life after four years of Arabic and Chinese, or Farsi and Russian, and a sophisticated immersion in history and of course security studies and intelligence practices. The natural location for such an institution is in Virginia near the alphabet agencies it would help staff, and the attraction of a free four year college education and a near-guarantee of employment afterwards would allow such an academy to stand up quickly and attract extraordinary 18 year olds immediately.
I'm on the record as being somewhat skeptical of efforts to create new institutions of higher learning to churn out the civil servants of tomorrow. I understand the CIA has some specific needs. But according to its director Michael Hayden, the agency is having no trouble attracting quality applicants. And couldn't the agency meet its future hiring goals by simply by funding scholarships at various existing institutions for courses of study important to the spies and analysts of the future? Do we really need to go the trouble of setting up a brick-and-mortar institution from scratch? After all, at the end of the day, the CIA is quite different from a military service, which has to mold its future officers to lead people into battle using specific techniques and strategies.
Comments
A national Public Service Academy would create in the civil service the same thing the military academies have created in the military - a two tiered system where the academy graduates get preferential treatment and the best positions and promotions and the ROTC/OCS folks get the scraps. How many times did I see "Ring Knockers" who couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat or walked around like they were unto the manor born get promoted over much better officers who went to ROTC? Aren't Academy grads suppose to look out for other Academy grads and their careers? Oh, and will you promise me too that the Public Service Academy will be politics free alone with that offer to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge?
I would suggest well thought out development programs for college graduates. Programs with adequate resources (time, money, and good teachers/mentors) to train up the next generation of civil servants. A Public Service Academy would become a divisive specialy school that would create more "Ring Knockers" and ultimately will not deliver the number and type of folk needed in the civil service.
Please sign me, "An 'Ol Corps Marine"
Andrew Cole | Thursday, September 20, 2007 | 07:51 AMOver the past several years, the Department of Education has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars (possibly billions now) on institutions of higher education to fund Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS), theoretically to benefit the military, intelligence community, and other federal agencies. Unfortunately there's been virtually no accountability to show that these programs actually turn out anyone of use to the United States. It's easy to see why. Look at the website of an area studies program at any major university and you'll find that there's either no focus on the region in modern times or that such classes when they do exist are taught by deeply embittered emigres who blame America for everything that happened to their country/region of origin. There's little reason to think that a brick-and-mortar FLAS campus would succeed where the competitive "virtual campus" has been sorely lacking.
Aaron | Thursday, September 20, 2007 | 07:46 AMLet's keep the bureauocracy to a minimum, mandate compulsory service for ALL young men and women, two years at least. Provide some type of GI Bill, and attempt to put the person in their field of interest. Sounds too simple, but it might just work?
ChristmasTree | Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 05:37 PMABOUT THIS BLOG
Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.
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