The Department of Labor pledges it will closely supervise the programs to spot slough-offs before the local newspaper does. For the first time, a federal summer-jobs program will require kids to spend about 90 hours in a classroom and then be tested. The department has also challenged businesses to provide an additional 1.3 million jobs.
Yet in the face of the challenge, these safeguards seem puny, even to some who are planning the program. “It would be far better, if the government wants to do this, to do it so you have a year to plan and implement the program,” says William Kolberg, president of the National Alliance of Business, which has worked with the Labor Department to find private-sector jobs. Many localities won’t start the hardest part–selecting supervisors and hiring kids –until Congress appropriates the money. They also have to scour the city for jobs that won’t displace city workers. Union rules often end up pushing kids into make-work jobs’ “I’m shocked that it’s taken them this long,” says Josephine Nieves, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Employment, which will try to place up to 65,000 kids in the coming weeks. The requirement that programs educate and employ kids complicates the task.
Measuring success depends on the goal. If it’s “fire insurance” to prevent urban rioting, as some lawmakers believe, then having kids doing something–anything–could be a sound investment. If the goal is to transfer federal money to low-income youths, that easy enough. But educating and providing useful work is hard. The only way cities could guarantee that millions wouldn’t be wasted would be to return the money if they couldn’t ensure quality. Since most programs operate with a use-it-or-lose-it mentality, the odds of that happening are about the same as a lottery winner turning back the money because he doesn’t need it. That’s a headline the White House wouldn’t mind seeing.
