Education

Two weeks ago, I posted a United Nations report on the increasing frequency of attacks on girls’ education around the world and called on the U.S. government to increase investment in education abroad. The White House, it seems, was thinking along the same lines, and on Tuesday they announced a new initiative titled Let Girls Learn. On Wednesday, I hosted a roundtable with Tina Tchen, assistant to the president, chief of staff to the first lady, and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, to discuss the new program and the challenge of increasing girls’ access to education. Having been inspired by a meeting with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai when she came to Washington, DC, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama personally announced the initiative at the White House the day before our event. The Let Girls Learn initiative focuses on community-based programs to eliminate the barriers to education adolescent girls face. This is smart: as I’ve written before, educating girls has positive implications for a country’s growth and stability. Plus, supporting local initiatives is the most effective strategy the United States can pursue. Not only does support for these community-based efforts help the U.S. government avoid accusations of exporting “Western feminism,” but it also ensures that strategies are specific to countries, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Yet there is an inherent challenge in supporting community-based initiatives:  how can the United States generate large-scale change in the lives of girls around the world by only focusing on small-scale, local programs? Let Girls Learn aims to leverage a variety of organizations across the U.S. government, in addition to international organizations and NGOs, to address this challenge. For example, the program taps Peace Corps volunteers, a large force of individuals each with a narrower, community focus, to train local leaders in establishing education programs for girls. The initiative also connects community leaders with national-level civil society groups through the Global Partnership for Education, channels investments from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, U.S. Agency for International Development, and State Department to education programs, and creates connections between local activists. Furthermore, as Let Girls Learn is launching, First Lady Michelle Obama will be traveling to Japan and Cambodia. Japan’s first lady, Akie Abe, is also a strong supporter of girls’ education, and Japan is a partner in this important work. The project could further empower local programs by combining the monitoring and evaluation data that is already conducted through these agencies, highlighting those programs that are most successful in various contexts, and making those resources easily accessible to community groups. Beyond connecting these local leaders, this would provide them with additional strategies for increasing girls’ access to education in their communities. Supporting local initiatives across the world is a daunting project, but one that is critical for removing the barriers to girls’ education. The Let Girls Learn initiative is a positive step for the U.S. government to empower girls and women, and, in turn, promote economic growth and stability around the world.

Two weeks ago, I posted a United Nations report on the increasing frequency of attacks on girls’ education around the world and called on the U.S. government to increase investment in education abroad. The White House, it seems, was thinking along the same lines, and on Tuesday they announced a new initiative titled Let Girls Learn. On Wednesday, I hosted a roundtable with Tina Tchen, assistant to the president, chief of staff to the first lady, and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, to discuss the new program and the challenge of increasing girls’ access to education. Having been inspired by a meeting with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai when she came to Washington, DC, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama personally announced the initiative at the White House the day before our event. The Let Girls Learn initiative focuses on community-based programs to eliminate the barriers to education adolescent girls face. This is smart: as I’ve written before, educating girls has positive implications for a country’s growth and stability. Plus, supporting local initiatives is the most effective strategy the United States can pursue. Not only does support for these community-based efforts help the U.S. government avoid accusations of exporting “Western feminism,” but it also ensures that strategies are specific to countries, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Yet there is an inherent challenge in supporting community-based initiatives:  how can the United States generate large-scale change in the lives of girls around the world by only focusing on small-scale, local programs? Let Girls Learn aims to leverage a variety of organizations across the U.S. government, in addition to international organizations and NGOs, to address this challenge. For example, the program taps Peace Corps volunteers, a large force of individuals each with a narrower, community focus, to train local leaders in establishing education programs for girls. The initiative also connects community leaders with national-level civil society groups through the Global Partnership for Education, channels investments from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, U.S. Agency for International Development, and State Department to education programs, and creates connections between local activists. Furthermore, as Let Girls Learn is launching, First Lady Michelle Obama will be traveling to Japan and Cambodia. Japan’s first lady, Akie Abe, is also a strong supporter of girls’ education, and Japan is a partner in this important work. The project could further empower local programs by combining the monitoring and evaluation data that is already conducted through these agencies, highlighting those programs that are most successful in various contexts, and making those resources easily accessible to community groups. Beyond connecting these local leaders, this would provide them with additional strategies for increasing girls’ access to education in their communities. Supporting local initiatives across the world is a daunting project, but one that is critical for removing the barriers to girls’ education. The Let Girls Learn initiative is a positive step for the U.S. government to empower girls and women, and, in turn, promote economic growth and stability around the world.

Last week, the government of Malawi took a big step toward protecting its girls and strengthening its families: it increased the legal age of marriage to eighteen. Previously, girls in Malawi were allowed to marry at sixteen or, with parental consent, at fifteen. The UN Population Fund reported that Malawi has the seventh highest rate of child marriage in the world, with half of all girls married before their eighteenth birthday, and nearly one in eight married by age fifteen. A 2014 Human Rights Watch report noted that in Malawi child marriage is often seen as a way to improve a family’s economic status, protect daughters from adolescent pregnancy—which is highly stigmatized—and ensure a family’s honor. Yet for girls, child marriage poses severe education and health risks. After girls are married, it is unlikely that they will continue to attend school. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, child marriage has been shown to lower the likelihood that girls will achieve literacy. Furthermore, child marriage exposes girls to all of the risks associated with early pregnancy and childbirth. Girls aged fifteen to nineteen are twice as likely to die from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth than women in their twenties, and girls under age fifteen are five times more likely to die. According to the World Health Organization, teenage pregnancy accounts for 20 to 30 percent of maternal deaths in Malawi. This makes the unanimous passage of the Divorce, Marriage, and Family Relations Bill by their parliament a positive step in improving the lives of women and girls in Malawi. Yet more remains to be done. As former President of Malawi Joyce Banda said at a recent CFR roundtable I hosted on child marriage, “In Malawi this week, we have finally passed the bill of banning child marriage… But the passing of the bill is just the first step… Passing the bill is one thing, but implementing is yet another problem.” Civil society groups warn that the practice of child marriage cannot truly become a thing of the past without programs to eliminate poverty and change other local practices. For example, in parts of Malawi, girls reaching puberty may receive a night-time visit from an older man—known as a “hyena”—with the intent of preparing them for marriage. There are a variety of strategies available to governments facing high child marriage rates—such as Malawi—to further their push to end child marriage. These include community-based initiatives that mobilize local leaders as well as men and boys to change social norms, programs that focus on returning girls to school after marriage or providing them with vocational training, and conditional cash transfer programs that encourage parents to keep their daughters unwed and in school. Ending child marriage will not only allow girls to reach their full potential, it will also contribute to healthier families and improve Malawi’s economic growth as these girls are able to contribute fully to their society.

Last week, the government of Malawi took a big step toward protecting its girls and strengthening its families: it increased the legal age of marriage to eighteen. Previously, girls in Malawi were allowed to marry at sixteen or, with parental consent, at fifteen. The UN Population Fund reported that Malawi has the seventh highest rate of child marriage in the world, with half of all girls married before their eighteenth birthday, and nearly one in eight married by age fifteen. A 2014 Human Rights Watch report noted that in Malawi child marriage is often seen as a way to improve a family’s economic status, protect daughters from adolescent pregnancy—which is highly stigmatized—and ensure a family’s honor. Yet for girls, child marriage poses severe education and health risks. After girls are married, it is unlikely that they will continue to attend school. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, child marriage has been shown to lower the likelihood that girls will achieve literacy. Furthermore, child marriage exposes girls to all of the risks associated with early pregnancy and childbirth. Girls aged fifteen to nineteen are twice as likely to die from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth than women in their twenties, and girls under age fifteen are five times more likely to die. According to the World Health Organization, teenage pregnancy accounts for 20 to 30 percent of maternal deaths in Malawi. This makes the unanimous passage of the Divorce, Marriage, and Family Relations Bill by their parliament a positive step in improving the lives of women and girls in Malawi. Yet more remains to be done. As former President of Malawi Joyce Banda said at a recent CFR roundtable I hosted on child marriage, “In Malawi this week, we have finally passed the bill of banning child marriage… But the passing of the bill is just the first step… Passing the bill is one thing, but implementing is yet another problem.” Civil society groups warn that the practice of child marriage cannot truly become a thing of the past without programs to eliminate poverty and change other local practices. For example, in parts of Malawi, girls reaching puberty may receive a night-time visit from an older man—known as a “hyena”—with the intent of preparing them for marriage. There are a variety of strategies available to governments facing high child marriage rates—such as Malawi—to further their push to end child marriage. These include community-based initiatives that mobilize local leaders as well as men and boys to change social norms, programs that focus on returning girls to school after marriage or providing them with vocational training, and conditional cash transfer programs that encourage parents to keep their daughters unwed and in school. Ending child marriage will not only allow girls to reach their full potential, it will also contribute to healthier families and improve Malawi’s economic growth as these girls are able to contribute fully to their society.

Last week, the White House sponsored an international summit on strategies to counter violent extremism (CVE), focusing on groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. Among the strategies suggested to mitigate radicalization, President Obama listed an increased emphasis on human rights and democracy: “That means free elections where people can choose their own future, and independent judiciaries that uphold the rule of law, and police and security forces that respect human rights, and free speech and freedom for civil society groups.” Repression by an authoritarian regime, political disenfranchisement, and human rights abuses are considered to be among the factors that lead individuals to terrorism, rather than choosing peaceful means to protest. As the president said last Thursday, “When governments oppress their people, deny human rights, stifle dissent, or marginalize ethnic and religious groups, or favor certain religious groups over others, it sows the seeds of extremism and violence… Terrorist groups claim that change can only come through violence.  And if peaceful change is impossible, that plays into extremist propaganda.” At the CVE summit, President Obama also specifically emphasized women’s rights, calling on participating countries to commit to “expanding education, including for girls. Expanding opportunity, including for women. Nations will not truly succeed without the contributions of their women.” A critical component of investing in human rights is investing in women’s rights. UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and lead author of the UN secretary-general’s Global Study on Women, Peace, and Security Radhika Coomaraswamy wrote recently in Foreign Policy that “empowered women are the foundation of resilient and stable communities—communities that can stand firm against radicalization.” The UN Security Council echoed this sentiment in resolution 2178 in September 2014, when for the first time the Council referenced the need to empower women in order to halt the spread of violent extremism. The United States can support women and girls’ rights—and therefore mitigate the factors that often lead to radicalization—by improving girls’ educational opportunities abroad, along with supporting the rights of women and girls more broadly. Ensuring that girls have access to quality education not only improves their ability to flourish and improve their employment opportunities for their own future, but also increases the chances that their children down the road will grow up in healthy, stable homes and receive education themselves. In turn, this will generate economic growth and decrease poverty, and thus limit the potential for extremism to thrive in their communities. Furthermore, research suggests that improving the status of women and involving them in peace negotiations, peacekeeping, and postconflict reconstruction creates greater stability, more sustainable peace agreements, fewer relapses into conflict, and therefore more lasting peace. By reducing conflict and creating greater prosperity, involving women in core peace and security matters—and in the mainstream economy—has the potential to reduce conflict, undercutting the insecurity, poverty, and desperate circumstances in which extremism flourishes. Increasing the emphasis on human rights—including women’s rights—in U.S. foreign policy is critical for national security.  However, as Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin J. Rhodes indicated in a recent New York Times article, the White House sometimes faces a disconnect between promoting human rights and partnering with human rights violators in the struggle to combat violent extremism. In the same article, Marc Lynch, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, noted, “There is a very profound conceptual disagreement about whether the best way to counter violent extremism is through human rights and civil society or through an iron fist.” President of the advocacy group Human Rights First, Elisa Massimino, pointed out that the very composition of the White House summit underscored the inconsistency between the rhetoric and reality: “We’re sitting in that room with representatives of governments that are part of the problem.” Another challenge is that the United States runs the risk of being accused of exporting “Western feminism” in overtly linking women’s rights to the fight against violent extremism. However, it cannot hope to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda without supporting women’s rights. By supporting local women’s rights efforts that have both legitimacy and on-the-ground knowledge, the United States can advance the rights of women and girls from the bottom up, which will not only help combat extremism, but also support more democratic, just societies.

Attacks on girls’ schools and female students have appeared in the headlines regularly in recent years, from the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, by Boko Haram to the assassination attempt on student and girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai. A recently released UN Human Rights Council report notes that in 2012 alone, more than 3,600 attacks occurred against educational institutions, teachers, and students. In the period between 2009 and 2014, school attacks were documented in over seventy different countries, including attacks specifically targeting students, parents, and teachers who have advocated for girls’ right to education. Threats and attacks on girls’ education have implications beyond even the livelihoods and futures of those girls. For decades, research has demonstrated that girls’ education is a proven method for growing economies, reducing extremism, and creating stability. Improvement in girls’ education is correlated with increased female participation and productivity in the labor market, thus generating economic growth and reducing poverty. Moreover, educated girls are more likely to marry later, have smaller families, and experience reduced incidences of HIV/AIDS. Not only are these benefits for the girls themselves, but also for their children, who are then more likely to be healthy and productive. Educating girls has the power to mitigate those factors—including oversized youth populations, mass poverty, and limited economic opportunity—that create the environments where extremism tends to thrive. As Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has said, “There are many problems, but I think there is a solution to all these problems, it’s just one and it’s education.” Thus, increasing U.S. investment in education abroad—particularly girls’ education—has the potential to reduce threats to national security before they manifest as full-scale conflicts. Rather than paying U.S. lives and dollars to fight terrorists after they established themselves abroad, the United States should invest in creating stable, prosperous societies, where extremism will have more difficulty taking root. International education has been discussed as part of the foreign policy agenda in recent years. In fact, one of President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises was to create a global education fund. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has also spoken out in favor of investing in education abroad, writing in Foreign Affairs, “Education has immeasurable power to promote growth and stability around the world. Educating girls and integrating them into the labor force is especially critical to breaking the cycle of poverty.” Yet the promised increases in funding for education abroad have not yet materialized. In both 2011 and 2013, the House of Representatives introduced the Education for All Act, a bill that to increase U.S. aid for education to $3 billion per year. But the bill has never passed, and from 2010 to 2013, education funding to Afghanistan declined steadily. The United States should support education—specifically girls’ education—abroad not only to empower and benefit girls around the world, but also to reduce poverty and improve stability in strategic regions and achieve U.S. national security interests.

Attacks on girls’ schools and female students have appeared in the headlines regularly in recent years, from the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, by Boko Haram to the assassination attempt on student and girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai. A recently released UN Human Rights Council report notes that in 2012 alone, more than 3,600 attacks occurred against educational institutions, teachers, and students. In the period between 2009 and 2014, school attacks were documented in over seventy different countries, including attacks specifically targeting students, parents, and teachers who have advocated for girls’ right to education. Threats and attacks on girls’ education have implications beyond even the livelihoods and futures of those girls. For decades, research has demonstrated that girls’ education is a proven method for growing economies, reducing extremism, and creating stability. Improvement in girls’ education is correlated with increased female participation and productivity in the labor market, thus generating economic growth and reducing poverty. Moreover, educated girls are more likely to marry later, have smaller families, and experience reduced incidences of HIV/AIDS. Not only are these benefits for the girls themselves, but also for their children, who are then more likely to be healthy and productive. Educating girls has the power to mitigate those factors—including oversized youth populations, mass poverty, and limited economic opportunity—that create the environments where extremism tends to thrive. As Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has said, “There are many problems, but I think there is a solution to all these problems, it’s just one and it’s education.” Thus, increasing U.S. investment in education abroad—particularly girls’ education—has the potential to reduce threats to national security before they manifest as full-scale conflicts. Rather than paying U.S. lives and dollars to fight terrorists after they established themselves abroad, the United States should invest in creating stable, prosperous societies, where extremism will have more difficulty taking root. International education has been discussed as part of the foreign policy agenda in recent years. In fact, one of President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises was to create a global education fund. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has also spoken out in favor of investing in education abroad, writing in Foreign Affairs, “Education has immeasurable power to promote growth and stability around the world. Educating girls and integrating them into the labor force is especially critical to breaking the cycle of poverty.” Yet the promised increases in funding for education abroad have not yet materialized. In both 2011 and 2013, the House of Representatives introduced the Education for All Act, a bill that to increase U.S. aid for education to $3 billion per year. But the bill has never passed, and from 2010 to 2013, education funding to Afghanistan declined steadily. The United States should support education—specifically girls’ education—abroad not only to empower and benefit girls around the world, but also to reduce poverty and improve stability in strategic regions and achieve U.S. national security interests.

Another year, another survey: the Modern Language Association (MLA) has released its quadrennial language enrollments survey of foreign languages in U.S. higher education. I’m sorry to report that American students continue to display very low interest in Indian languages. This continues a pattern going back decades. Despite the Indian economy’s rapid growth, and the increase in U.S.-India diplomatic ties, students in U.S. colleges and universities are not signing up for Indian languages at remotely the scale languages like Arabic, Chinese, or Korean experience. First, the context: during 2013, the year the newly-released data covers, foreign language enrollments dropped overall by 6.7 percent since the prior survey year, 2009. Long-established and highly studied languages in the United States—Spanish, French, and German—all saw enrollment drops from 2009 to 2013, whereas previous years had seen upward trajectories. Only four languages saw increases in their enrollments from 2009 to 2013: Korean, with a whopping nearly 45 percent, American Sign Language, Portugese, and Chinese. Source: Modern Language Association Language Enrollment Database, 1958-2013 It’s not surprising that the most studied foreign language in the United States is Spanish, with nearly 800,000 enrollments, and French occupies the second slot with nearly 200,000. But the trends since 2002 tell a story about twin interests in Asia’s economic rise and national security concerns. Japanese has enjoyed substantial enrollments going back to the 1970s, with a doubling from around 23,000 in 1986 to nearly 46,000 in 1990. In the years since then it has been on a consistent uptick, 2013 excepted. Chinese has similarly been on a slow increase from the late 1970s as well, with a more dramatic 50 percent bump from 2002 to 2006. Korean enrollments were below 1,000 in 1986, with slow increases through 2009, and then the surprise 44 percent increase in 2013. Arabic enrollments hovered from 3,000 to around 5,000 from 1977 to 1998, and then doubled by 2002 to a little more than 10,500, and then doubled again by 2006 to nearly 24,000. (All data retrieved from MLA.org’s interactive enrollments database.) Source: Modern Language Association Language Enrollment Database, 1958-2013 Indian languages follow a path less traveled. The big post-9/11 national security interest that resulted in many more Americans studying Arabic did not have the same impact on Indian languages. (And frankly, the uptick for Pakistani languages still resulted in enrollments under 500 for every Pakistani language—a topic for another discussion.) Nor has India’s economic rise resulted in the dramatic growth in numbers languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean have seen. Of course it’s harder to compare India’s many languages with each of these, but even when including all the Indian language enrollments in the United States combined, the number still doesn’t cross 4,000. For 2013, Indian language enrollments dropped to 3,090 from the 3,924 of 2009. This is very slim compared with the scale of study that Japanese (nearly 67,000), Chinese (over 61,000), and Korean (more than 12,000) had in the United States during 2013. And it has been like this as long as I’ve been watching. (The pattern appears as well in U.S. study abroad destinations, where India does not even make the top ten.) Whenever I make this comparative statement, I receive emails and comments from people noting that English is an Indian language, so why should anyone bother with learning others? It’s true that English is an official language of India, along with Hindi, and that is not my argument. In the business world, people speak English across Asia, so the issue isn’t narrowly one of ability to communicate. Rather, it’s more an observation of the priority American students appear to place on developing a deeper and more place-specific knowledge of a country. In the case of India and its official and many other languages, I’m afraid that Americans do not see these as a high priority compared with other choices. Top photo credit: Indic Scripts, 2013. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa

Since 2000, the percent of state budgets devoted to higher education has fallen from 13 percent to 9.5 percent. This decline in funding has strained public university finances, reduced pay for many professors, and driven up tuition for students. In a new column for Bloomberg View, CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Peter Orszag explains the factors that have led to the dramatic state university budget cuts, and discusses some ways that states can better manage their higher education budgets.

This is a guest post by Amir Farokhi, CFR Term Member and COO, College Advising Corps. Imagine a leaking pipe is flooding your house. What would you do? You would patch it immediately. Yet, when it comes to America’s pipeline of talent, we do ourselves no such favors, allowing too many gifted high school students to give up on higher education. Even though there are many fractures in the pre-K to college pipeline, among the most glaring is the number of qualified students who do not pursue or complete higher education. Recent Census Bureau data show that among Americans ages 25-64, only 31 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher. The very foundation of our economic success--our human capital--is no longer an advantage. While baby boomers helped America lead the world in education attainment, Americans aged 25-34 today rank just 10th in high school educational attainment and 14th in college educational attainment. Moreover, our college drop-out rates are significantly higher than the global leaders like Korea and Denmark. The economic impact of an undereducated populace on our economy is staggering: hundreds of billions of dollars. Although a college degree is not necessary for every job in America, demand for educated workers far outstrips supply. Moreover, educational attainment directly impacts individual and national economic success. Those with at least a bachelor’s degree make more money per week and over their lifetimes than those without one. This individual benefit accrues to the national economy through increased productivity, after-tax income, and tax revenues. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the benefit in today's dollars after costs and discounting for future inflation is over $380,000 for U.S. men and nearly $240,000 for U.S. women. Even after factoring in the cost to taxpayers of state universities, low-interest college loans and other subsidies, OECD’s Director of Education Andreas Schleicher says that “taxpayers get $200,000 more out of every graduate than what they invested.” Make College Access and Completion a National Priority Fixing the leak in our education and talent pipeline should be a national priority. The best solutions come at the intersection of government, business, and civil society, and include the following: 1. Increase college access support in high schools The average American high school student receives a paltry 20 minutes of guidance per year, with only one college counselor for every 463 students. The numbers in California are even more abysmal, with nearly 1,000 students per counselor. For low-income and underrepresented students especially, this lack of support leaves them thinking college is not a possibility. If school budgets are not going to fund more college advising support, the social sector--backed by philanthropy, government, and business--must fill the gap. There are already many such efforts across the country. Some use college students to volunteer to help high school students. Others use a service model and place recent college graduates in high schools as full-time college advisers. Innovative experiments to provide online, video, and remote support are also underway. Whatever the approach, America must make it easy, transparent, and supportive for every student to receive expert college advising guidance. 2. Get higher ed to actively recruit low-income students It is not enough for colleges and universities to hope they get applications from low-income and underrepresented students. Higher education needs to actively encourage these students to apply by placing admissions officers in rural towns, immigrant enclaves, and poor, urban neighborhoods. This also means investing in financial aid for these students and ensuring that they get the support to succeed once in school. Arizona State University and Georgia State University have done this to remarkable effect using real-time student progress tracking and near-instant academic and financial counseling. 3. Reward states that prioritize college access support If we want to see universities and states make college access a higher priority, the federal government should tie its education funding and university research grants to college access benchmarks, which include the percentage of low-income and first generation students that apply to two- and four-year universities, and the percentage that matriculate and complete college. Higher education institutions should be judged based on the number of low-income and first-generation college students that apply to, matriculate, and receive a degree from their institutions, and then compared against peer institutions with similar size, focus, and endowment. Among the best in the country at attracting and graduating high numbers of low-income students are UC-Riverside, UC-Davis, UNC-Charlotte, and the University of South Florida. UC-Riverside, which serves more Pell-eligible students than the entire Ivy League combined, graduates them at the same rate as high-income students. This should be encouraged and rewarded. Our leaking talent pipeline casts a shadow over America’s future economic health. Luckily, the fixes are not complex and are relatively easy to implement.

As Pakistan continues to reel from December’s horrific school attack, its government has initiated a crackdown on terror across the nation and instituted new security measures at schools. Last week, the Army Public School in Peshawar—site of the massacre that left over 150 dead—was reopened to students. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Pakistan visit happened to coincide with the school’s reopening. Yet Kerry’s visit was mainly geared toward reinforcing U.S. support for counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. While Kerry’s visit to Pakistan and support of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue are laudable, critics have called for stronger rhetoric on Pakistani human rights. Many of the government’s actions—including, for example, the reinstitution of the death penalty and the use of military trials for terrorist suspects—have drawn criticism from international human rights organizations. Yet there is another equally troubling facet of Pakistan’s policy response to the December 16 attack: the fact that schools that do not meet the onerous new school security requirements—which include barbed wire, security guards, and surveillance cameras—were not permitted to reopen. According to the New York Times, only 118 of the 1,380 private schools in Peshawar met the new guidelines, and police in Islamabad prevented some schools from reopening last week. Security of students and teachers is, of course, critical. But the closing of schools should only be a temporary measure in Pakistan. Keeping children out of school can have debilitating effects on the country’s economy, stability, and security in the long term. Children without access to education are more likely to face limited economic opportunities in the future, and lack of economic opportunity is a primary factor in environments that foster extremism. Yet it is natural for parents to fear for their children at school in the wake of December 16, and Pakistan should address those fears more quickly to ensure that children can return to school safely. If such safety standards are not met, parents may see keeping their children—especially girls—out of school as the only way to protect them. Pakistan, the United States, and Pakistan’s other allies might consider the steps Afghanistan has taken to protect students as a model for Pakistan’s future. In the summer of 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution addressing the attacks on Afghan school children and calling on other countries to support Afghanistan in combatting these attacks. Then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai introduced a steering committee, consisting of representatives from across Afghanistan’s ministries, to coordinate the government’s response to attacks on children. John Kerry and his Pakistani counterparts announced the launch of a new working group for the Strategic Dialogue: a working group on education, science, and technology. This creates an opening for the United States to offer more robust support for Pakistan’s efforts to improve security at schools, while not sacrificing access to these schools. It is understandable that parents and governments want to care for their children and prevent any such terrorist attack from ever happening again. Yet keeping schools closed is not the answer. By mobilizing resources from across government ministries, Pakistan should work to bring schools up to the appropriate security standards swiftly, thus returning children to school and ensuring a future of prosperity, stability, and opportunities for children to reach for their dreams and fullest potential.

As Pakistan continues to reel from December’s horrific school attack, its government has initiated a crackdown on terror across the nation and instituted new security measures at schools. Last week, the Army Public School in Peshawar—site of the massacre that left over 150 dead—was reopened to students. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Pakistan visit happened to coincide with the school’s reopening. Yet Kerry’s visit was mainly geared toward reinforcing U.S. support for counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. While Kerry’s visit to Pakistan and support of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue are laudable, critics have called for stronger rhetoric on Pakistani human rights. Many of the government’s actions—including, for example, the reinstitution of the death penalty and the use of military trials for terrorist suspects—have drawn criticism from international human rights organizations. Yet there is another equally troubling facet of Pakistan’s policy response to the December 16 attack: the fact that schools that do not meet the onerous new school security requirements—which include barbed wire, security guards, and surveillance cameras—were not permitted to reopen. According to the New York Times, only 118 of the 1,380 private schools in Peshawar met the new guidelines, and police in Islamabad prevented some schools from reopening last week. Security of students and teachers is, of course, critical. But the closing of schools should only be a temporary measure in Pakistan. Keeping children out of school can have debilitating effects on the country’s economy, stability, and security in the long term. Children without access to education are more likely to face limited economic opportunities in the future, and lack of economic opportunity is a primary factor in environments that foster extremism. Yet it is natural for parents to fear for their children at school in the wake of December 16, and Pakistan should address those fears more quickly to ensure that children can return to school safely. If such safety standards are not met, parents may see keeping their children—especially girls—out of school as the only way to protect them. Pakistan, the United States, and Pakistan’s other allies might consider the steps Afghanistan has taken to protect students as a model for Pakistan’s future. In the summer of 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution addressing the attacks on Afghan school children and calling on other countries to support Afghanistan in combatting these attacks. Then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai introduced a steering committee, consisting of representatives from across Afghanistan’s ministries, to coordinate the government’s response to attacks on children. John Kerry and his Pakistani counterparts announced the launch of a new working group for the Strategic Dialogue: a working group on education, science, and technology. This creates an opening for the United States to offer more robust support for Pakistan’s efforts to improve security at schools, while not sacrificing access to these schools. It is understandable that parents and governments want to care for their children and prevent any such terrorist attack from ever happening again. Yet keeping schools closed is not the answer. By mobilizing resources from across government ministries, Pakistan should work to bring schools up to the appropriate security standards swiftly, thus returning children to school and ensuring a future of prosperity, stability, and opportunities for children to reach for their dreams and fullest potential.

President Obama should promote shared capitalism in his State of the Union Address. In his new column for Bloomberg View, CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Peter Orszag recommends that the president make a push for policies that encourage stock-ownership plans or profit-sharing schemes for corporate employees. Shared capitalism plans have been shown to reduce turnover, improve workers’ job satisfaction, and raise their compensation. They also raise productivity, which boosts companies' bottom lines. As concern about wage stagnation grows, shared capitalism plans are a good way to begin reversing its negative effects.

For the first time since the start of the Great Recession in 2008, the United States is finally creating a lot of new jobs--252,000 jobs in December, and nearly 3 million over the whole of 2014. Unemployment has fallen to 5.6 percent, the lowest rate since June of 2008. But the good news masks an equally disturbing trend--far more Americans are dropping out of the work force, and those who are unemployed are remaining jobless a lot longer. The average length of unemployment--currently about seven and a half months--is twice as long as it was prior to the recession. Some three million Americans have been unemployed for six months or longer, and millions more have given up looking and dropped out of the labor force entirely. The costs of long-term unemployment to the U.S. economy, and to the individuals themselves, are enormous, and the resources to help those individuals are few and fragmented. In two new reports released today, we take a deeper look at the issue, and at how the United States could better tackle the problem. In our latest Progress Report and Scorecard, “No Helping Hand: Federal Worker Retraining Policy,” my colleague Robert Maxim writes: “The United States’ federal worker-assistance system--the collection of federal programs designed to help job seekers--does not adequately address this new kind of unemployment. It is particularly unable to cope with the massive spike in long-term unemployment brought on by the Great Recession.” These federal programs, the report concludes, are highly unequal, with some unemployed Americans enjoying far greater benefits than others, and are generally insufficient for getting workers back in the labor market, particularly at jobs that pay nearly as well as their old ones. Many European countries, where long-term unemployment has long been a chronic problem, have far more developed worker assistance and retraining programs than does the United States. And over the last decade, labor force participation has been rising in these countries even as it has been falling in the United States. But the costs of these “active labor market” policies are steep. Denmark, which has perhaps the most ambitious scheme in the world, spends 2.3 percent of its GDP on worker assistance and training, while Germany, which has the world’s best-developed apprenticeship programs, spends 0.8 percent of GDP on these programs. In the United States, the comparable figure is just 0.1 percent. But there are important things the U.S. government could do at far more modest cost. In the new Renewing America Policy Innovation Memo, “A Bipartisan Work Plan: Helping America to Work,” former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and CFR adjunct senior fellow Matthew Slaughter call for for Congress to embrace a jobs policy overhaul based on three core principles: “concentrate on jobs for the long-term unemployed; supplement wages, when necessary, to encourage employers to increase hiring; and relax congressional budget rules for programs that help people become earners and increase future tax revenues.” They also recommend better assessment of the effectiveness of existing job training programs, most of which have never been subject to proper oversight and scrutiny. The report calls for far more active engagement of the private sector in training programs, because the employers themselves best know their needs and the types of training required. Where necessary, it calls for federal wage subsidies or an expansion of the earned-income credit to get more people back into jobs, concluding that the costs to taxpayers will be modest. And Zoellick and Slaughter argue that Congress should be prepared to relax its sometimes overly rigid budget rules and recognize in its budget scoring that getting people back to work would boost output and increase tax revenues. Putting more Americans back to work would seem to be fertile ground for bipartisan cooperation in the new Congress. The two parties came together last summer and agreed in large numbers on modest reforms to federal job training programs. But far more is still needed to address the serious problems of long-term unemployment.