Is this really something we need?

Hillary Clinton has a proposal to help get more people involved in public service.

Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told college Democrats on Saturday she would create a national academy to train public servants.

"I'm going to be asking a new generation to serve," she said. "I think just like our military academies, we need to give a totally all-paid education to young men and women who will serve their country in a public service position."

Why on earth would we need a special academy for this? Many colleges offer a public policy major that serves this purpose. If it's teachers she's concerned about, there are education departments in colleges across the country. Why would we need a federal academy?

There doesn't seem to be any lack of people going into government jobs. And if she's trying to issue a new call to serve, why do we need to provide these public servants with an all-paid education? The comparison to military academies is specious. The military academies teach specialized skills that you're not going to get in any other sort of college or university. They provide that special unity among comrades that you couldn't really get on a regular college campus, though ROTC does an admirable job. But do we really need a federal public service academy? What would it teach that students couldn't get at the now existing colleges. Public employees already overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party; does Hillary really need to make extra promises to win the support of the service employees unions?