Education

It may be too soon to start talking about the long-term consequences of the government shutdown, since it could go on for a lot longer. But here’s one that worries me a lot and is getting no attention: the lasting damage it will do to the federal workforce. Whether you like all the things the government does or not, having good people in government matters enormously. The people performing critical security or safety functions--transportation safety or air traffic control or visa security--have to perform flawlessly in what can be mind-numbingly repetitive jobs. Those who write regulations to ensure the safety of your bank deposits or prevent mortgage rip-offs require detailed and complex knowledge about the potential impacts of arcane rules. Those who enforce the laws, whether they’re Justice Department prosecutors or agricultural inspectors, need to make difficult judgments about how and where best to use their often immense legal authority. This is not to say that all federal workers are geniuses and saints. I have run into my share of petty bureaucrats, yes men, and spin-meisters--though in my experience more of these tend to be temporary political appointees than career civil servants. But most are smart, hard-working people doing a demanding job for modest pay and few accolades. And I fear that in the aftermath of the shutdown, many of the best are going to leave. The reason is not primarily money--though the wage freeze of the last three years, and unpaid furlough days due to the sequester are certainly taking a big bite. The reason is respect. Most of the federal workers I know--like the best employees anywhere--are very proud of what they do, and believe they are making an important contribution to their fellow citizens. But look at what has been visited on them. First, there is the arbitrary division between “essential” and “non-essential” workers. I have a great deal of admiration for the military and the civilian defense work force, but the idea that the entire defense complex is “essential” but those who run Head Start programs to give struggling children a chance at a decent education are “non-essential” is offensive. Even within agencies, many offices are now being being staffed by a handful of those who do exactly the same work as their furloughed colleagues, only a lot more of it now. Are the others deemed  “non-essential”  going to return with the same loyalty and commitment they had before the shutdown? And they may be the lucky ones. The essential workers who are carrying the load may feel heartened by the designation, but how good will they feel to be working twice as hard for paychecks that don’t arrive? Yes, they will be paid eventually when the full government returns, but depending on how well they have saved, work pressures will be amplified by money worries at home. Further, some of those workers are being asked to carry out humiliating tasks in the name of the shutdown. Employees of the National Parks Service -- perhaps the government’s worst-funded, most over-stretched agency – are told to shutter the very monuments and parks that they work every day to preserve and share with all Americans. The effects of all of this are hard to predict for certain, and depend on how long the shutdown continues. But it is a safe bet that some of the best federal workers--those with the most options outside the government--will decide not to stick around for the next time their employer decides to give them unscheduled leave. The government that’s left will be weaker and less effective as a result, with lower morale and fewer exemplary employees as leaders. Just consider that the next time you’re boarding an airplane or sitting down for a hamburger and a spinach salad at lunch.

Last month, I wrote about the economic and social reforms that have boosted Africa’s growth, and the challenges the region still faces going forward. This week, David Smith of The Guardian wrote on a similar theme, questioning the popular narrative of “Africa rising.” Based on survey data, Smith argues that recent optimism about the continent is misguided: although there has been economic growth, it has not helped average Africans. Indeed, in some countries – including in South Africa, the continent’s largest economy - poverty rates are increasing. Smith cites a recent report by the Afrobarometer research project, which found that recent economic growth in the region is “failing to trickle down.” More than two in five Africans surveyed reported that they regularly cannot fulfill basic needs. Overall, the gains of Africa’s recent economic growth remain too skewed toward small groups of elites. This is not good news for democracy on the continent either, since research shows that the success of emerging democracies very much depends on whether democracy materially improves people’s lives. As I noted in my earlier post, economic and social reforms have occurred unevenly across the continent. To move forward and address rampant poverty, the region will have to overcome major challenges, particularly related to education and the growing youth bulge. The Afrobarometer report supports these claims: it finds that higher levels of education can help reduce poverty, as can access to resources such as piped water and electrical grids. The Obama administration’s commitment to “Power Africa” by doubling access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa, where two thirds of the population lacks access to power, is good news on this front. The Afrobarometer report also points to deep frustration about lack of employment. Seventy-one percent of Africans surveyed were disappointed with their government’s ability to create jobs and reduce income inequality. Africa’s current mix of economic activity remains overly reliant on natural resources, so to boost employment, economies must diversify; and governments must better educate youth so that they can participate in an expanded economy. Otherwise, Africa’s wealth will continue to overly benefit elites.

In a recent blog post, John Campbell calls attention to a new infographic that compares African countries and serves as, “a great introductory tool to a host of African issues. It also provides a fascinating overview of the differences among the various African countries—and the differences within a single country.” Read his full post here.

Whenever I fly back from a trip outside the country, I’m always relieved to be carrying a U.S. passport, because the customs and immigration inspection lines for those who are not Americans or permanent residents always look an awful lot longer. A new report out last week shows just how long those lines sometimes are. In a continuation of what has become an encouraging trend of making more of its data available to the public, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released to the U.S. Travel Association data on passenger wait times at five of the biggest gateway airports in the United States – Chicago O’Hare, Washington Dulles, Miami, New York JFK, and Los Angeles. The good news is that average wait times at most of the airports were less than 30 minutes (though the data includes both citizens and non-citizens, and the latter generally face longer waits). The bad news is that wait times often spike to an hour or more. At the worst airport – New York JFK – average waits were more than 30 minutes in 10 of the 12 months from June 2012 to May 2013, and more than 180,000 people endured waits of two hours or more, presumably causing many of them to miss connecting flights. Tourism is one of the biggest businesses in the United States, adding $168 billion on the plus side to the U.S. current account balance last year. But it’s a competitive one: travelers have many choices, and increasingly they have chosen places other than the United States. The U.S. share of global long haul travel fell from 17 percent in 2000 to just under 13 percent last year, which adds up to almost 100 million potential visitors lost and hundreds of billions in spending. And there is no question that long wait times and other travel hassles play a role – a new survey that accompanies the report found that nearly half of overseas travelers avoid trips to the United States because of the difficult entry process. Almost two-thirds said that getting rid of long lines and wait times would make the United States a more attractive destination. None of this is particularly the fault of CBP, nor the Obama administration which has made promoting tourism a high priority. CBP has been proactive in encouraging travelers to enroll in Global Entry and other trusted traveler programs that reduce wait times, though much more could still be done. And the vital post-9/11 security improvements, including the U.S.-VISIT system for taking fingerprints from arriving visitors, has been implemented and expanded with minimal disruption. This is one of those cases where more bodies would make a big difference. A report earlier this year out of the University of Southern California, which was based on detailed economic analysis of wait time data, found each additional CBP officer hired at one of the 33 airports that receive international passengers would generate $2 million in additional economic activity annually for the United States, and create more than 30 other spin-off jobs. The estimated annual cost for each new officer, including recruitment, training, salary and benefits, is just $108,000 per yer. That's an extraordinary return on investment by any measure. (Full disclosure – the lead author of that study, Bryan Roberts, was my co-author along with John Whitley on our recent study of the effectiveness of border enforcement in reducing illegal migration). The Senate immigration reform bill, which is now languishing in the Republican-led House, has it backwards on this issue. The bill would add nearly 20,000 Border Patrol agents to prevent illegal entry across the land borders, even though the number of people trying to sneak across the border is just a third of what it was a decade ago. For the legal entry ports, the bill would authorize just 3,500 more officers even though overseas travel to the United States is expected to grow by 50 percent over the next decade. A more sensible division would pay huge economic returns.

In the early 2000s, Africa’s future seemed grim. The Economist’s May 13, 2000 cover declared “Africa: The Hopeless Continent.” But over a decade later, when The Economist again devoted a feature story to the continent, the message had changed entirely to “Africa Rising.” A new book by Jonathan Berman, Success in Africa: CEO Insights from a Continent on the Rise, aims to explain how this transformation happened and what the world can expect from a now-hopeful continent. Berman argues that three simultaneous revolutions - in governance, education, and communications - have catapulted the region forward. Indeed, for eight of the past ten years, Africa grew faster than East Asia, with a solid 4.2 percent growth in GDP in 2012 and 5.3 percent projected for 2014. The proportion of poor Africans fell from fifty-eight percent in 1999 to 47.5 percent in 2008. The number of AIDS-related deaths fell thirty-two percent between 2005 and 2011, and the region now boasts the world’s fastest-growing middle class. Berman rightly lauds the sound economic management and investment strategies that have propelled the economies of countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and Gabon. In addition, the book profiles hard-charging African CEOs such as James Mwangi, the CEO of Kenya’s Equity Bank, which boasts nearly 8 million accounts and a market capitalization of over $1 billion; and Funke Opeke, a Nigerian businesswoman and CEO of Main One Cable who is helping wire and bring transformational high-speed, affordable Internet access to the continent. These business leaders, with their world-class skills and long-term visions, are forging new markets, driving growth, and raising both economic and political expectations along the way. Although some African nations have made promising progress, the reality is that economic and social reforms have occurred unevenly across the continent. Some countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Angola, are still held back by rampant corruption, severe inequality, and undiversified economies. The continent faces several other challenges as well. Perhaps its most pressing issue is education. Africa’s workforce, currently made up of nearly 400 million people, is expected to grow by 122 million people this decade, becoming the largest in the world by 2035. This represents a huge economic opportunity, but one that Africa will be able to take advantage of only if it is able to upgrade its education system. Today, children in sub-Saharan African countries spend an average of just 4.7 years in school - attaining only rudimentary math and reading skills. And thirty-five percent of African youth have no access to secondary school or technical training. A related source of long-term concern is that Africa’s current mix of economic activity, which is mostly related to resource extraction, will not generate a sufficient number of jobs to soak up Africa’s youth bulge. The International Labor Organization reports that between 2000 and 2007, the working age population grew in Africa by 96 million people but there were only 63 million new jobs created. As we’ve seen in the Middle East, having a majority of unskilled and unemployed youth in a population is a huge risk factor for conflict. This is particularly important given the rise of extremism in the Sahel and West Africa. In Nigeria, for example, where there is rampant unemployment, government corruption, and too little formal education, youth are ripe for radicalization by Islamic jihadist organizations such as Boko Haram. Berman doesn’t ignore these real challenges, and readily acknowledges that although the positive trends he emphasizes are still underway, their outcomes are “by no means certain.” Nevertheless, Success in Africa helps change the lens through which Africa is viewed. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the dynamism, innovation, and economic potential of the continent.

In a recent blog post, John Campbell unpacks claims that South Africa has the worst education system in Africa. He explains: The South Africa educational reality is complex. There is a high quality education system left over from the apartheid era that runs through all levels. Access to it, once restricted to whites, is now in effect restricted by the ability to pay the fees…But, the vast majority of South Africa’s children are educated in the successors to the former black-only township and homeland schools. It is widely recognized in South Africa that the education system for most South Africans is not meeting their needs – nor the needs of the country. Read the full post here.

A hat tip to John Kelle for bringing to my attention an interesting and useful interpretive infographic, “Scoring Africa.” Using a matrix, each country is scored on health, stability, economy, infrastructure, education, biodiversity, rights, and size. Each of these categories is in turn broken down into four sub-categories. Under "health," for example, the sub-categories are HIV/AIDS, medical persons, life expectancy, and under five mortality. There is a composite score for each country and also country scores for each category and sub-category, based on a scale of zero to one hundred. The scoring is based on data from UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation), and international financial institutions, such as the Africa Development Bank. The data is presented via a map of Africa. A user clicks on a country, then on a category or subcategory as desired to access a score. The presentation is especially clear and attractive. “Scoring Africa” was developed by Great Business Schools and is available for use by everyone. It is a great introductory tool to a host of African issues. It also provides a fascinating overview of the differences among the various African countries—and the differences within a single country—from one category to another. John Kelle, a part of the development team, is a graduate student in research psychology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and also works as a researcher/marketer for a private firm.

The most ambitious part of President Obama’s new college accountability plan unveiled in August—tying the eligibility of schools for federal student aid to demonstrated results in preparing students for the job market—is unlikely to survive. The less ambitious part—ranking colleges and making the “value” of a school’s degree more transparent to student consumers—probably will. But it is unlikely that transparency alone will shake up the higher education establishment and either lower costs or improve quality, especially when the onus is on students to find and act on the information. Obama is the first president to push for college accountability. The “No Child Left Behind” accountability movement that swept through the K-12 world in the 2000s skipped over higher education entirely. But there is at least as much reason to be concerned about cost and quality control in higher ed as in K-12. The astronomical increase in tuition is well-known. Less well-known is the fact that federal taxpayers are subsidizing that increase through student grants and tax breaks. Compared to K-12, nearly twice as much federal money goes toward higher ed (not including student loans) every year, yet there is virtually no accountability for how those federal dollars are spent. And there is tremendous waste in the higher ed system; the United States has the highest college dropout rate in the developed world. For students and taxpayers alike, it makes a great deal of sense to expect more from colleges that rely heavily on government-funded student aid. But so far only Obama’s initiatives promoting passive transparency of results have survived, while initiatives with real teeth that tie institutions’ funding to results have been stillborn. It helps that simply displaying more information online does not need to go through Congress; any change to federal funding or student aid does need congressional assent. In 2013 the Department of Education began publishing a “scorecard” for each college laying out graduation rates and graduates’ average debt levels. It also developed a “shopping sheet” that colleges can voluntarily provide prospective students containing similar cost and quality metrics. But Obama’s other attempts at making funding conditional on quality, such as the 2011 “gainful employment” rule, are going nowhere. According to the rule, career-ready and vocational degree programs would lose their accreditation if their graduates did not do well enough in the labor market to recoup a certain amount of the tuition cost. A small fraction, perhaps only about 5 percent, of the programs would have been shuttered. Nevertheless, these institutions are fighting tooth and nail in court to keep the gainful employment rule a remote possibility. Republicans have promised to scuttle the plan in Congress. A similar fate no doubt awaits the part of Obama’s new plan that would make the level of federal student aid they receive contingent on how much value they offer students. It would cast the accountability net wider than the gainful employment rule, applying to all colleges. The hefty lobbying weight of the higher education establishment is kicking into gear, vowing to kill it. Republican Congressional leaders are mobilizing against it; Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) calls it “government overreach,” while Representative John Kline (R-MN) warns it could lead to “federal price controls.” If recent history is any judge, the part of Obama’s new plan that ranks colleges based on value has better political odds of getting off the ground. More states are also introducing their own college quality comparison websites and ranking systems, including California which enrolls a quarter of the nation’s community college students. For now, federal higher education accountability will continue to rely on transparency in the hopes that students who are empowered with more and better information will make more prudent decisions and force colleges into sharper competition. That is a lot to expect of students. These data transparency systems assume a level of engagement that may not be there, particularly with low-income students who have the highest dropout and debt default rates and therefore could benefit the most from stricter college accountability. The proposed ranking system would still be several steps and clicks away from students on the Department of Education’s website. Colleges can opt out of using the “shopping sheet” or can bury it deep in application materials. A better transparency-based system would force colleges to place the relevant information directly into the hands of students in a clear and digestible way. Better yet, a proactive intermediary would help students make college decisions and support them through to graduation. Research has shown that high-needs students tend to do much better when they are placed in a highly structured environment and decisions about what courses to take are made for them by guidance counselors or the course trajectory is already clearly mapped out for them. Some of the more innovative community colleges take the liberty of placing indecisive students into degree programs that data show leads to higher earnings. And while the federal government is reluctant to tie institutions’ funding directly to quality, several states are giving it a shot. Florida and Louisiana are now using graduates’ wage data to determine which degree programs to terminate or expand. Several states, notably deep-red Tennessee and Texas, are experimenting with performance-based funding for their community college networks. Soon we could have a better sense of what works better for improving the country’s higher ed system: putting the onus directly on the institution or indirectly through student consumers.

In discussions and writings about the Asia Pacific, India often seems to get short shrift—despite its size, record-breaking economic growth, and growing regional and global influence. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to pose some questions to the renowned economist—as well as Columbia University professor and my CFR colleague—Jagdish Baghwati about his terrific new book with Arvind Panagariya on India, Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries. Here are his responses: 1. Jagdish, talk a little bit about the impetus for writing this book. What did you want to accomplish? Having written countless books and articles on India, both I and my co-author Arvind Panagariya were conscious of the fact that people might say: there they go again! But this time, we did feel that Indian attempts at reforms were continually being assailed by populists and left wing economists whose conclusions (i.e. critiques) were more obvious than their arguments. We felt that finally we had to take their critiques apart, even if it ruffled some feathers as they have in the case of even such a well-known economist as Amartya Sen. So, we devoted our first section to setting out several “myths” that were like hand grenades thrown at our reformers each time they decided to make more progress. 2. You and your co-author, Arvind Panagariya argue that over the long-term, India provides a better model for developing countries than China because it has been moving forward on both Track I and Track II reforms. Explain what you mean, and is China likely to catch up? By Track I reforms we mean the growth-enhancing reforms which manage to pull people out of poverty by offering the poor more opportunity. But the growth also generates more revenue at any given tax rates. This enhanced revenue means that we can spend more on education, health, etc. for the poor, and we call these policies Track II policies which of course rest on the shoulders of Track I reforms. But Track II policies do not necessarily follow enhanced revenues: these revenues could be spent on expanding defense out lays instead! Here, we argue that India’s liberal democracy—with relatively independent judiciary, free press, NGOs (i.e. civil society), and opposition parties—has ensured that the rising aspirations of the poor as growth spreads its benefits are transformed by India’s democracy into effective political demands, whereas the authoritarian regime in China prevents this from happening effectively. A liberal democracy does matter and China is probably learning this lesson painfully. 3. In your discussion of higher education in India, you suggest a number of reforms you believe necessary to support a rapidly growing economy. What are the most salient of the reforms and how likely do you believe the Indian government is to adopt them? What will be the ramifications if the government does not move forward? What has been most impressive in India is that, while the public sector provision of health and education has often been marked by inefficiencies like absentee doctors and teachers, the private provision thereof has been huge. Thus, you have private schools operating on streets, for example! The poor are in fact spending their moneys, which growth has put into their hands, on buying such private schooling for their children. The mistake of some of the leftwing ideologues is to believe that if public revenues are to be spent to provide health and education, this must mean that the public sector must be the mechanism through also believe that, with aspirations aroused, we need to use IT technology to improve access by the multitudes of the poor to education. A literate labor force would improve the returns we get from importing equipment embodying technical change; this is the lesson from the Far Eastern economies. Again, some economists like Sen argue that education will lead to growth. But that is like the "Field of Dreams" in the movie; education, when the policy framework is not promoting growth, cannot work by itself to engineer growth. 4. One of the aspects of your book that I enjoyed most was your debunking of myths, for example, “reforms have led to increased inequality” throughout the first half of your book. As a non-India expert, I confess that I certainly had fallen prey to many of them. Share with us one or two myths that you debunked for yourself in the process of writing the book. We were surprised to find that post-1991 reforms had  been so remarkably successful in reducing poverty. Then again, the benefits had extended unmistakeably to the “untouchables” (who are now called Dalits), and to women, tribals and lower castes. As for inequality, there was no trend increase in it, as many alleged. Then again, some observers, like the political scientist Asutosh Varshney, had argued that India was having its own Gilded Age like the American one a century ago. But even this was not true. The Indian rich spent moneys on fancy cars and on extravagant weddings; but not much beyond that. 5. You devote very little time in the book to infrastructure—which many observers consider to be one of the most serious obstacles to a continued strong development trajectory for India—and your prescription for improvement is largely that the government agencies need to coordinate better. Can you talk a little bit more about other obstacles to infrastructure, such as the grass-roots opposition and funding? Are there examples of states within India that have done a relatively better job of infrastructure development and if so, what makes them stand out? True, we could have spent more time on this issue (and on climate change and pollution) though there is an advantage in keeping the book short. Both in India and China, rapid growth has led to shortage of infrastructure; and the government has not mobilized enough to fill the lacuna. China has built far more; but it too faces shortages in several areas. [By contrast, in many African countries, many advocate the building of infrastructure before the growth materializes. Much like the "Field of Dreams" approach, the hope is that roads will generate traffic. Alas, that hope rarely works out.] Returning to India, the State that has the best infrastructure development is Gujarat where the ports and roads are splendid and the credit goes to the hands-on government of Chief Minister Narendra Modi who, in eleven years and three successive victories, has now catapulted himself into a potential prime minister on the basis of his economic performance which has also translated into impressive changes in Gujarat’s social indicators. 6. Throughout the book, you offer comparisons between India and China. What do you think Indians, themselves, perceive to be India’s greatest strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis China. Do they have it right? Comparisons between India and China have preoccupied social scientists since the 1940s. Both countries were supposed to be the giants that would awaken and dominate the world. But they continued snoring instead. Now they have indeed awakened. China has emerged as a huge powerhouse; India is behind the curve though its growth has accelerate considerably since the 1991 reforms. India’s weakness is its slowness of decision-making, which is cultural. We had a great Prime Minister Vajpayee of the BJP government who typified the slowness as he took forever to respond. So Prime Minister told me a story about how he had told President George W. Bush about going to India to see Vajpayee. So, Bush said: But you saw him only six months ago. So Blair said: I asked him a question then; I am now going for the answer! China’s main problem by contrast is going to be the increasingly restive population: growth does lead to demands for civil and political rights. How Chinese leaders respond—whether by political suppression of dissent or by political accommodation—will influence greatly what the future holds for China.

There is a chicken-and-egg problem in the U.S. labor market. With the U.S. economy still down some 2.4 million jobs from its peak in January 2008, U.S. employers should be enjoying a buyer’s market for skilled workers. And yet employers report that they are struggling to fill open jobs – at last count there were 3.83 million job openings, close to a five-year high. As Thomas Hilliard of the Center for an Urban Future writes in his new Renewing America working paper, Building the American Workforce, “an alarming number of Americans lack the skills and education credentials needed to compete for decent-paying jobs in an economy transformed by globalization and accelerating technological change.” It is startling that in an economy where unemployment and underemployment remain chronically high, more than half of U.S. employers report difficulty filling jobs because of a lack of suitable skills among applicants. The numbers are worse for manufacturing, where two-thirds report a moderate or severe shortage of qualified workers. Those numbers are a serious indictment of the failure by the United States to prepare its population for the changes brought by intensifying global competition and advances in technology. Almost every western European country, as well as Canada and Australia, has created employment training systems that are more comprehensive and stable than the United States, and offer a range of basic skills, training, and apprenticeships to help individuals move from one job to the next, and often from one career to the next. In the United States, in contrast, workforce training is fragmented, inconsistent, under-funded, and generally ineffective. The message too often is, if you lose your job, you're on your own. Hilliard sees the biggest failings in so-called “middle skills” jobs, those that require some college or an associate’s degree, often coupled with certification and on-the-job training. These are decent jobs that can be attained without the expense of a four-year college degree – an adult with an aviation certificate can earn $65,000 a year, and some computer and information technology certificates can lead to jobs paying $70,000 or more. The United States ranks 16th among developed countries in the percentage of its workforce that has attained middle-skill degrees, and the dropout rate in these programs is shockingly high. Only 28 percent of students who enroll in these programs graduate on time. Governments at all levels have offered little help. Federal workforce funding fell by nearly 60 percent in real dollars from 2000 to 2010 even as the number of unemployed doubled. Much of the money that is left is spent on job search and placement, which does nothing to help the unemployed upgrade skills that could land them better jobs. Some states and cities have done better in creating re-training programs that bring together community colleges and employers to meet market demands, but these remain the exceptions. Hilliard calls for Congress and the administration to develop a proper national workforce training system. Rather than just delivering specific programs, the goal would be to take individuals from where they are to where they need to be in terms of job skills. For some, this will start with basic adult education that develops core workplace traits such as dependability, integrity and willingness to learn, as well as basic math and literacy skills. For others it could mean assistance in completing certificate programs or other occupational training. Community colleges and other providers should be rewarded depending on how far the individual needs to go to be ready for employment. The issue of workforce training is among the most important currently confronting the United States. In a global economy where we are competing for investment, the failure to provide a trained workforce will cause many companies to look elsewhere for future investments, further weakening the economy and limiting job growth. Hilliard lays out a series of sensible, and cost-efficient, steps that the federal government could take to prepare Americans for the hyper-competitive economy in which we live. The alternative is a continued, and costly, waste of human talent.

Turns out, popular media is not always a mindless distraction. There is evidence that so-called “education-entertainment,”  which weaves important information about health, safety, and cultural issues into an enticing plot line, can be highly effective in combating cultural prejudices and encouraging positive behavior. In some cases, exposure to progressive media is enough to upend societal preconceptions. For example, a recent study shows that one year after cable television was introduced into several rural Indian communities, fewer viewers said it would be acceptable for a husband to beat his wife than said so a year earlier. The study also found that there was a reduced preference for male children in Indian communities with cable access compared to those without it. Progressive television programs in Brazil have had a comparably powerful effect, as writers and producers have taken on social and cultural issues, adding both more drama and more educational value to their programs. For example, a 2008 study found that after Brazilian soap operas began portraying families that were smaller than the national average, the fertility rate dropped in the regions where these shows aired. Women viewing these programs sought to emulate them and, combined with greater access to contraception, this led to a declining fertility rate and an increase in women’s independence and ability to pursue educational and career opportunities. Similarly, television programs can encourage entrepreneurship. Simplemente María (Simply Maria), a Peruvian soap opera that aired in 1969, followed the fictional story of a young woman who moved to the city, learned to read and sew, and eventually became a famous fashion designer. The show was wildly popular and aired five days a week for two years. The rags-to-riches story, ripe with lessons about perseverance and women’s independence,  led to a substantial spike in enrollment in literacy classes throughout the country. In Pakistan, NGOs like the Aurat Foundation have long used radio-based soap operas to reach rural women, many of whom are literate, with important social and health messges. Now, deeply contentious issues are increasingly examined through popular culture outlets, such as film and television. Bol, the highest-grossing Pakistani film of 2011, tells the story of the strained relationship between a father and his transgendered son. And the upcoming show Taan, a spin-off of the American show Glee, tackles issues related to homosexuality, Islamic extremism, and interfaith relationships. The widespread popularity of Bol and high expectations for Taan, in a country where homosexuality is punishable with life imprisonment, illustrate how popular media can challenge cultural norms even in repressive societies. International organizations would be remiss to ignore this rich opportunity to facilitate social change and raise awareness about important health issues. Indeed, many development organizations, such as the Population Media Center, have already taken advantage of the power of popular media to effect social change. And several producers and governments have taken the initiative to enhance their television programs with educational content. Take Apwe Plezi: a Saint Lucian radio program funded by the government that aired in the 1990s and addressed controversial issues including HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and domestic abuse. Research has shown that the program “influenced listeners to increase their awareness of contraceptives, improve important attitudes about fidelity and family relations, and adopt family planning methods.” In addition, Soul City, a popular South African soap opera, produced in part by public health activists, educates viewers about the dangers of unprotected sex and HIV/AIDS. The show is as popular as Coca-Cola is in the country and viewers are nearly four times more likely to use a condom than non-viewers are. The success of Soul City need not be limited to South Africa. Development organizations should attempt to emulate the show’s model and harness the power of entertainment to effect change. Funding progressive and popular programs abroad, which challenge the audience’s preconceptions and provide exciting entertainment, could be a useful way for wealthy countries to further development goals. Sometimes soap operas are simpy more effective than lectures or campaigns at transforming society.

If many technology startups and established education firms have their way, the future of education will more closely resemble a one-on-one private tutor than a traditional schoolhouse classroom with a single teacher lecturing to twenty-five students seated in neatly arranged desks. These firms are developing tools for adaptive education, an approach that analyzes data in real-time to tailor a lesson to each student’s needs and strengths, to reinforce concepts not fully absorbed, and deploy techniques effective for that particular student. New York City’s Department of Education launched School of One (SO1) in 2009 to improve the performance of middle school math students through adaptive education. Pilot programs in three schools throughout NYC deploy a variety of formats, from live online virtual instruction and remote tutoring to small and large group teacher instruction. Detailed real-time assessment allows educators to track a student’s progress in mastering the nearly 400 math skills in SO1’s roadmap for grades 4 through 9. Students proceed at their own pace. If gaps in learning appear, material is repeated, and new skills are introduced to build upon mastery of more elementary concepts. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other educators have praised SO1’s approach and the program is spreading to Chicago and Washington, DC. An NYU study published in 2012 found mixed results on improving test scores, but cautioned that educational innovation is challenging to implement and success is usually incremental rather than abrupt. If SO1’s approach of ensuring a firm foundation of basic skills before advancing to more complex material is accurate, then improved performance may be more pronounced over several years. There is an emerging ecosystem of adaptive education providers; here are a few prominent examples. News Corporation’s Amplify provides a curriculum that follows the Common Core and combines game-like experiences with analytical tools. Knewton—a NYC-based startup—provides a technology platform that its content creator partners, such as textbook giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, use to create adaptive experiences for any subject matter. Many other startups exist as well, from Australia’s Smart Sparrow, whose platform allows anyone to create an interactive learning experience to San Francisco’s Inkling, which creates electronic textbooks that incorporate quizzes and self-assessment tools. Proponents of adaptive education see a revolution— The Economist argued that the new technology is ready to remake U.S. schools and then the world’s—but not everyone is sanguine. One concern is that the student-teacher relationship may weaken in an educational environment increasingly reliant upon technology. Some critics fear that qualified teachers may be replaced by more technology and less qualified instructors. Another concern is that teacher oversight and evaluation will become more overbearing with richer datasets. While adaptive education may change the job of a teacher, some changes will likely be beneficial to all: automation of repetitive tasks like quiz scoring, ability to leverage high quality curricula and learning content, and more motivated students. Some experts believe individual teachers could earn higher pay, as more technology enables a well-qualified teacher to effectively manage a larger classroom. Well-off students may disproportionally benefit from greater access to the new technologies, but economies of scale should help poorer school districts benefit as well. Many new resources should be affordable, some are even free; Khan Academy provides a free library of over four thousand high quality instructional videos across many subjects with adaptive assessments. Adaptive education does face some technological limits. For instance, while automated essay grading systems have been able to closely replicate scores given by human graders, experts have found ways to game them. Programs that cannot understand the content of the argument use the presence of long words and sentences as proxies for complex thought and clear expression. Still, with U.S. education slipping ten spots in both high school and college rates over the past three decades, there may be a lot to gain from successful implementation. Currently, there are limited data to support the promises of adaptive education, but most experts see large potential in a teaching approach that allows students to progress at their own learning pace.  

The power of girls’ education in producing economic and social dividends has now been well-documented – indeed, it has come to be seen as one of the most potent vaccines against poverty and disease. The most recent UN Human Development Report found that “a mother’s education level is more important to child survival than is household income. Projections also show that policy interventions have a greater impact in countries and regions where education outcomes are initially weaker. This has profound policy implications, potentially shifting the emphasis from efforts to boost household income to measures to improve girls’ education.” The report goes on to explain, “educated women tend to have fewer, healthier and better educated children; in many countries educated women also enjoy higher salaries than do uneducated workers.” But 35 million girls remain out of school worldwide, according to the World Bank, nearly half of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa. A slew of explanations account for this absence--from cultural traditions to girls’ responsibilities at home. Now, new research conducted  in Ghana by the World Bank sheds light on one crucial link: the time a girl has to spend fetching and hauling water is directly connected to her school attendance. This is especially the case in rural areas where distances to water sources are usually longer than they are in cities. This new research, published in a World Bank report authored by Céline Nauges and Jon Strand, “indicate[s] that reducing by half the time to haul water would increase the proportion of girls aged 5-15 who attend school by 2.4 percentage points on average, with stronger impacts in rural than in urban communities.” Another paper, set to be published in the coming months, similarly finds that both boys and girls go to school in higher numbers when it is easier to access water. The authors, Gayatri Koolwal and Dominique van de Walle, note that, “a one hour reduction in the time spent to walk to the water source increases girls’ school enrollment rates by about 10 percentage points in Yemen, and by about 12 percentage points in Pakistan.” Similar results have been found when it comes to the gathering of firewood. Authors Nauges and Strand count their paper as among the first to document the significance of the relationship between the time required to fetch water and girls’ attendance in school. They hope it will not be the last: “Our results should serve to help policy makers and donors in identifying, and quantifying, the potential and actual benefits of water infrastructure improvement in Ghana, and we believe, in the rest of Africa and beyond,” write the paper’s authors. Food for thought as policymakers develop the next round of Millennium Development Goals.