Service-Learning and Community Service in K-12 Public Schools

Service-learning, discussed here in terms of incorporating community service experiences into students' school work, has long been viewed as a positive education reform option. To determine how extensive the practice is, NCES conducted the first national-level study of service-learning in America's K-12 public schools in the spring of 1999. Analysis of this study in this Statistics in Brief reveals a number of results including the fact that roughly one-third of these schools have incorporated service-learning to some extent and that most of the schools that have service-learning provide teachers some sort of support to help them integrate service into their curriculum.