During his 2008 bid for the presidency, Barack Obama campaigned mainly on education, clean energy, health care and foreign policy. But he also made 14 pledges about public service, including one about expanding service learning opportunities in schools.

In a fact sheet about public service, Obama said he believed that middle and high school students should perform 50 hours of community service each year. To make this happen, he said his administration would create national guidelines for service-learning and community service programs. He also promised to give schools new tools to develop programs and to document students' service.

Initially, Obama seemed to be on a path to fulfilling his campaign promise. In his first budget, Obama secured a 5 percent increase in funding for Learn and Serve America, the federal program focused on recruiting public school students for volunteer projects. For context, Congress had appropriated roughly $37 million in 2008 and again in 2009, but increased the amount to $39.5 million in 2010.

In 2011, however, the program became a target for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite requests from the White House to preserve the program, the enacted budgets for 2011 and 2012 included no money for Learn and Serve America. Obama isn't requesting any money for Learn and Serve in his 2013 budget.

Samantha Warfield, a spokeswoman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, said the agency is using other means to incorporate community service as an educational tool. For instance, a 2012 AmeriCorps competitive grant application process gives points for proposed service learning programs that would result in better school attendance, increased completion of homework and a change in attitude about school.

Nevertheless, the main vehicle for service learning in schools lost its funding in the past three years, the opposite of Obama's policy intention. We rate this a Promise Broken.