Few programs prepare a you for a future career better than one that requires four things: Be a team player, speak fluent English, conduct yourself in a mature and responsible manner, and dress professionally.
So why would such a program be eliminated?
Ask your congressional representatives. The House majority and minority leaders have directed other House officials to take the steps necessary to end the nearly 200-year-old House Page Program.
The program gives high school juniors the chance to live, work and study in the nation's capital, where they act as support staff to members of the House of Representatives; attend Page School; work as a team; speak fluent English; act responsibly; and wear a navy blazer, gray skirt or pants and nice black shoes that don't show their toes.
But just as college is more than learning theories and concepts, these types of experiences mold and shape teens in ways that people never consider until they encounter it themselves.
An experience like this exposes you to ideas and people who think differently than you. It helps you become more independent.
Perhaps seeing the democratic process that closely propels you to want to make things better.
Students in this program also witness history. The experience entices some to engage in the political process in a constructive way, "in an era when positive dialogue needs to replace vitriolic discourse," former page Susan Wachs Goldberg said in The Washington Post.
You may or may not end up working in government. But the program can be one of the most formative experiences of your life, as former page Elijah Jatovsky said it was for her in the article.
It offers "a rare opportunity for young people with vastly different opinions to come together and discuss, learn and build off of one another's ideas," said Jatovsky, stressing how investing in the education of future leaders is vital to America's future.
Those who decided the page program's fate say the cost is prohibitive and that advances in technology have "rendered most page-provided services no longer essential to the smooth functioning of the House." This includes their duties to deliver correspondence, legislative materials and small packages, answer phones and sometimes prepare the House floor for sessions.
But the program "was never about delivering papers as cheaply as possible," former page Ken Archer said in the same article.
"It was about instilling civic virtue in the next generation." If it's just about cost, he suggests considering taking away the minimum wage that the pages are paid and charging for room and board.
Heaven knows how many employers are looking for such workers, not to mention ones who don't dress like they're going to the mall.
Can we survive without a page program in Congress⢠Yes. But what does it say about our priorities⢠Is eliminating a tradition as American as apple pie and with this bigger purpose the best we can do to cut costs?
Perhaps a closer look at how some of the program's participants turned out might help. Take Bill Gates, a congressional page in 1973.
Maybe a closer look at how the program does more than move information but can shape our country and future work force would have saved it from becoming the latest casualty of the bean counters.
E-mail Andrea Kay at andrea@andreakay.com .
