Social Issues

Education

  • Education
    PBS's "Homeland": A Must-Watch on Immigration Policy
    In a presidential election year, it’s almost impossible to find any balanced and nuanced analysis on an issue as volatile as immigration. So it’s tremendously refreshing to watch the new, three-hour PBS documentary series, “Homeland: Immigration in America,” which begins airing across much of the country this week. The episodes will also be available on a website created for the program, at www.explorehomeland.org. Wonderfully narrated by Ray Suarez of the PBS News Hour, the series does a superb job of tackling most of the big immigration challenges – such as enforcement, jobs, and refugees. But what is unique and fascinating about the series is that it locates these issues in an unlikely place – the state of Missouri. Missouri is not exactly the first state that comes to mind when thinking about the immigration challenges facing the United States. According to the Migration Policy Institute’s authoritative MPI Data Hub, Missouri ranks 41st out of the 50 states in the immigrant percentage of the total  population – just 3.9 per cent. In first place California, over 27 percent of the population is immigrant. But the local PBS affiliate that produced the program – Nine Network of Public Media in St. Louis – started with the hunch that the whole story could indeed be told without leaving the state. And they were right. While the total numbers are still small, the immigrant population in Missouri has nearly tripled since 1990.  An episode on refugees looks at survivors from conflicts in Africa and the Middle East struggling to remake their lives in St. Louis. The episode on enforcement profiles Kris Kobach, a Kansas City lawyer and radio host who has played a key role in the harsh enforcement legislation passed by states like Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia. But it also looks at migrants fighting deportation (including some unprecedented footage of the deportation flights overseen by the Department of Homeland Security), and at local police trying to win trust in immigrant communities where some fear arrest and deportation. For the segment on jobs, the producers looked in depth at the town of Monett, Missouri, which is a big employer of immigrants in the local Tyson Foods chicken slaughtering plant, and at the farms in the region trying to fill seasonal jobs through the H-2A temporary worker program. Immigrants there have revitalized the town, but also caused a fair bit of trepidation among older residents and raised new challenges for the local schools. And the documentary also follows the story of a local Taiwanese student who is working for a PhD in immunology at Washington University in St. Louis, and trying to navigate complex U.S. immigration laws to figure out whether she will be able to stay in the United States after she graduates. The stories are interspersed with analysis from a range of immigration experts that sets the local issues in a broader context. Full disclosure – I am one of the talking heads quoted at times in the episodes. But don’t watch it for that. The people in the show – the immigrants themselves and the local citizens who are wrestling with how to react to their growing numbers – speak for themselves. In an election year, where the complexities of an issue like immigration are inevitably bludgeoned out of the debates, that is a great service.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden July 26, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Caterpillar, Unions, and the Falling Middle Class
    Why is Caterpillar, a company that made a record profit of $4.9 billion last year, demanding that unionized workers in its Joliet, Illinois factory agree to a six-year wage and pension benefits freeze? Quite simply, because it can. That underscores the enormous challenge facing those who are trying to figure out how, as Francis Fukuyama put it in last Friday’s Financial Times, to “stem the loss of rich-world middle class jobs and incomes through forms of redistribution that do not undermine economic growth or long-term fiscal health.” Caterpillar, General Electric, and others are among the big multinational companies that are currently expanding employment in the United States, which is a good thing. But the new jobs they are creating are usually modestly paid (often in the range of $12 to $15 an hour), and the companies are determined to keep a tight lid on future wages and benefits. For much of the 20th century, redistribution in the United States happened largely through the private sector. Employees, many of them organized by labor unions though many not, were able to demand higher wages and benefits because corporations had few alternative sources of labor and were usually able to pass some of the higher costs on to their customers. Government played a role through the tax system, but the big redistribution programs – such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – largely benefited those not in the labor force. Globalization changed that dynamic. First, the lowering of trade barriers created intense new competition for U.S. corporations. Those saddled with overly expensive labor contracts, such as the Big Three auto companies, found themselves unable to compete with overseas rivals. Secondly, an expanding global market for investment allowed U.S. companies to set up operations overseas and then export back to the United States or to other markets. The new trade competition forced American companies to cut costs; the new investment openness gave them an effective means for doing so. The result was a huge shift in the balance of power that strengthened global corporations like Caterpillar and weakened the bargaining leverage of their employees. Since the 1970s, corporate after-tax profits as a share of GDP have risen, with several wide swings depending on economic cycles, from an average of about 5 per cent to more than 10 per cent in 2010, the highest since records began in 1929. Wage and salary income, in contrast, has fallen steadily from close to 55 per cent of GDP in the early 1970s to less than 45 per cent today. It has been more or less impossible for even the most powerful and well-organized unions, like the International Association of Machinists currently on strike against Caterpillar in Joliet, to resist these trends. The companies have too many options – from bringing in temporary workers to simply shutting down and moving the work somewhere else. Often the threat of relocation is enough to persuade unions to accept concessions. The effects of this reverberate through the broader economy. U.S. multinational companies have historically paid some of the highest wages in the country, 25 percent above the overall average. If wages at the biggest and best companies are fixed or falling, wages will be tamped down at smaller companies as well. And of course the general weakness of the economy and high unemployment are also suppressing wages, exacerbating trends that existed long before the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. At the moment, it is hard to see how the dynamic will change in ways that are more favorable to employees. Mostly what we have seen is rhetoric, such as the feckless presidential campaign “debate” over outsourcing. Even serious and important initiatives like the Harvard Business School’s Competitiveness Project are relying primarily on moral suasion to persuade companies to be better corporate citizens and undertake initiatives to strengthen the U.S. workforce and the broader economy. The medium-term answers all involved some combination of rising employee skills and productivity that make the United States a more attractive location for high-wage work. But as long as companies hold all the bargaining cards, most of those gains will go to shareholders and management rather than to higher wages and benefits. And the problem of how to create and sustain middle-class jobs will remain unsolved.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden July 23, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Foreign Languages and U.S. Economic Competitiveness
    Americans are lousy at learning foreign languages. We all know the historical reasons – the United States was long a big, largely monolingual country with a fairly self-sufficient economy. U.S. economic and military might (and that of the British Empire before) spread the English language across the world, so that English became the global second language and the de facto language of international business. But in the latest Renewing America Policy Innovation Memorandum, A Languages For Jobs Initiative, scholars from the Center for Applied Linguistics argue that Americans in the future are unlikely to get by so well on English alone. Nearly 30 percent of the U.S. economy is now wrapped up in international trade, and half of U.S. growth since the official end of the recession in 2009 has come from exports. The fastest-growing economies in the world are not English speaking. And as Brad Jensen of Georgetown University has shown, the most promising export sector for the United States is business services, which often requires face-to-face interactions with foreign customers. As the authors write: “[F]uture U.S. growth will increasingly depend on selling U.S. goods and services to foreign consumers who do not necessarily speak English.” Yet American students are woefully unprepared to do that. Foreign language education is actually on the decline in the United States. Only 15 percent of primary schools teach foreign languages, even though it is much easier to learn one by starting very young. Even in middle and high schools, foreign languages are generally optional and not required for graduation. Not surprisingly, just one in five public school students currently studies a foreign language. The authors argue that the priority of foreign language instruction in education must be increased. This includes proper assessment and accountability, and the development of more immersion programs, which have been shown to be the most effective form of language instruction. The United States should take advantage of its large immigrant population of foreign language speakers to expand and strengthen immersion programs. Some states are catching on, following Utah which has long been a leader in immersion education. Last year, Delaware Governor Jack Markell launched the Governor’s World Language Expansion Initiative, which will create new immersion education opportunities. Governor Markell argues that multinational companies in his state – of which there are many thanks to business-friendly laws and regulations –can’t find the foreign language speakers they need. Three Delaware school districts will launch Chinese and Spanish programs next year, and state has set a goal of 20 immersion programs with over 2,500 students by 2015 and over 6,000 students by 2020. Increasing overseas tourism to the United States – which has been an Obama administration priority – has also underscored the importance of language skills. With many more Chinese and Brazilian tourists, for instance, hotels and retailers will pay a premium for staff with the language skills to communicate with those visitors. While much of the competitiveness discussion concerns the performance of the U.S. economy, the real issue at stake is the competitiveness of future generations of Americans. U.S. companies will find the personnel they need to compete in export markets, and are perfectly happy to hire English-speaking foreigners rather than foreign language-speaking Americans. Americans who speak English alone will increasingly face a disadvantage in competing for some of the best jobs in business. Certainly language is only one part of the set of skills that U.S. students will need to thrive in an increasingly global economy. Study abroad, foreign travel where possible and familiarity with other cultures are all important parts of the mix. But the ability to communicate in one or more foreign languages is clearly key. Foreign language instruction needs to stop being an afterthought in the K-12 curriculum and instead become a top priority alongside math, science and the humanities.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden June 26, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    A "Languages for Jobs" Initiative
    See CFR Senior Fellow and Renewing America Director Edward Alden's accompanying blog post here. The promotion of foreign language instruction should be a national priority. In an increasingly competitive international economy, a workforce with more market-relevant foreign language skills is a strategic economic asset for the United States. Yet foreign language education is on the decline, particularly at the primary level when foreign languages are best learned. Federal policy is not stepping up. Recent federal efforts to promote foreign language instruction are not designed to have a broad-based impact and have been focused almost exclusively on achieving national security goals. U.S. economic competitiveness goals are equally important, but there are no comprehensive efforts to promote the instruction of languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, German, and Hindi, in local school districts where foreign language education must occur to improve proficiency more broadly. The federal government should launch an interagency "Languages for Jobs" initiative, with funding levels at least equal to security language programs. As part of the initiative, the Department of Education would develop foreign language education accountability metrics and primary-level immersion programming that leverages the country's existing multilingual population. The Economic Case for Foreign Language Skills The global economy is shifting away from the English-speaking world. Since 1975, the English-speaking share of global GDP has fallen significantly and will continue to fall. The Chinese economy will surpass the U.S. economy in size soon after 2030. Latin America (Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking) and South Asia (Hindi- and Urdu-speaking) are growing strongly as well. Exports have accounted for half of postrecession U.S. economic growth, and future U.S. growth will increasingly depend on selling U.S. goods and services to foreign consumers who do not necessarily speak English. In a competitive global export market, there will be a premium on foreign language skills and international competency. It is an old adage that you can buy in any language, but you must sell in the language of your customer. Business services such as banking, insurance, and architecture are the fastest-growing U.S. export sectors, and selling these services requires employees able to work effectively in non-English-speaking countries. In a survey of large U.S. corporations conducted ten years ago—when exports were less critical for the U.S. economy—30 percent responded that personnel with insufficient international skills prevented their companies from fully exploiting business opportunities. Eighty percent believed their sales would increase if they had more internationally competent staff. The widespread use of English as the leading global second language, especially in business, does not offset the disadvantage faced by monolingual Americans. A 2011 survey of more than one hundred executives in large U.S. businesses found foreign nationals have an advantage in competing for international jobs. Three-quarters agreed that language skills made it easier for foreign nationals to work in the United States than for U.S. nationals to work overseas, leaving Americans at a significant disadvantage at a time when U.S.-based multinational companies are growing faster abroad than at home. The Foreign Language Education Deficit The U.S. education system is not producing workers with sufficient broad-based foreign language proficiency. Foreign language instruction is often delayed until age fourteen and is optional. Unlike nearly every other content area, there are no national assessments in place for measuring foreign language proficiency. A smaller percentage of primary (15 percent) and middle (58 percent) schools offer foreign language courses compared to ten years ago—which is particularly worrying since foreign languages are often best learned at younger ages. The share of high schools offering foreign language courses fortunately remained relatively steady at over 90 percent. But still, as of 2008, just one in five public school students was studying a foreign language. Compare this to U.S. economic competitors: For the vast majority of developed countries, foreign language education begins between the ages of five and ten, is mandatory, and is systematically tested along with core subjects. In Brazil, mandatory English instruction begins at eleven, in China and Korea at eight. Even English-speaking countries like the United Kingdom and Australia are lowering the age at which foreign language instruction begins and bolstering proficiency requirements. The foreign languages offered in U.S. schools are also not well matched to the fastest-growing foreign markets. Spanish instruction is by far the most common, constituting 72 percent of all K-12 foreign language enrollment. Spanish-speaking Latin America's global market share is indeed growing. But an economic case can be made for more diverse language instruction. Brazil's economy is and will continue to be larger than Mexico's, yet fewer than fourteen hundred public school students a year are enrolled in Portuguese courses. India's economy will rival that of all of Latin America in coming decades, but even fewer (less than one hundred) public school students are learning Hindi. Mandarin Chinese, the language of what will be world's largest economy, is still only offered at 4 percent of high schools. The federal government is failing to address U.S. market-relevant foreign language capacities. Non-security-related language programs have been budget casualties. Funding for the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP), the only Department of Education program devoted to primary and secondary foreign language education, was terminated when its small budget of $26 million was zeroed-out in budget cuts after the 2011 debt ceiling agreement. Meanwhile, federal accountability pressure to test core subjects (e.g., the No Child Left Behind Act) has pushed state and local governments to funnel resources away from untested foreign language education. To the extent that state and local governments receive any outside help for foreign language education or programming, it tends to come not from the federal government, but from foreign entities, such as Germany's Goethe Institute or China's Hanban Confucius Institute. Yet there are clear signals that the American public wants new investments in foreign language programming. Seventy-five percent of Americans believe all students should know a second language. A majority supports foreign language graduation requirements for high school. In a positive trend, the number of immersion schools—which are highly effective at producing foreign language proficiency—has steadily increased over the past forty years as other forms of foreign language education have fallen off. Recommendations Given the need to increase the foreign language capacity of the U.S. workforce, the federal government must reverse cuts to existing foreign language programs. Beyond that, the federal government should develop a comprehensive national strategy for assessing and improving foreign language instruction. The National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) of 2006 continues to support foreign language education for national security purposes through the Departments of State and Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But NSLI programs, many of which are limited to summer sessions, are not designed to support or coordinate foreign language education in local school districts. A broader approach to strategic foreign language instruction should be developed and should focus on languages that are critical for U.S. economic competitiveness, including Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, German, and Hindi. The federal government should lead a broad-based national Languages for Jobs initiative, spearheaded by the Department of Education and supported by an economic competitiveness rationale to invest in the foreign language skills of young Americans. Specifically, the initiative should be funded at levels at least on par with what has been spent on the National Security Language Initiative, or roughly $100 million annually, which would support a combined effort across federal departments, including Education, Commerce, Labor, State, and Defense. Positive results in foreign language education outcomes will most likely be achieved through an interagency effort that combines funding opportunities, resources, and staff around shared goals, outreach, and implementation. develop and promote the use of common accountability measures for foreign language teaching and programs. Once the assessments are in place, all foreign language programs receiving federal funding should be focused on demonstrating adequate levels of progress in students' language skills. Teaching quality and learning progress in foreign languages should be evaluated with the same rigor as math, reading, and the sciences. develop and promote a foreign language immersion program that is integrated into core content learning and begins at the primary level. After initial startup costs, immersion programs are no more costly than other language instruction programs. Support for teacher training should be included, since immersion language instruction is a more demanding skill. promote the use of untapped heritage language speakers in foreign language immersion programs. Approximately one-fifth of American children live in homes where languages other than English are also spoken, but heritage language retention is so limited that proficiency is regularly lost between the second and third generations. Foreign language immersion programs can leverage heritage speakers in the classroom while also helping them retain their language skills. Conclusion Facing a global economic challenge, the United States must build a multilingual workforce prepared to thrive in today's world market. Doing so requires that the federal government engage in a comprehensive, interagency national initiative to improve foreign language education in the United States.
    Policy Innovation Memorandum by Terrence G. Wiley, Sarah Catherine Moore and Margaret S. Fee June 26, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Obama, Romney, and Immigration: The Indefensible Status Quo
    No one expects any congressional action this year, or probably anytime soon after that, to end the enormous waste of the current immigration system. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that the leaders of both parties are in a morally indefensible position. And that makes positive change more likely than it’s been in a long time. Let’s take the Democrats first. The Washington Post had a fascinating piece of in-depth reporting last weekend on how President Obama during his first term dealt with the political pressure from two big liberal constituencies – gay rights activists and immigration reformers. On immigration, the article showed the president at his worst – defensive, short-tempered, quick to blame others, and reflexively backing positions quite at odds with his own stated values. He came into office promising in his first year to pass reform legislation that would legalize many of the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants; instead he has presided over the highest number of deportations, at roughly 400,000 per year, of any president. How indefensible is this? Well, the next day the Post ran another big story, this one on a Guatemalan-born girl in Virginia named Heydi Mejia, who had been brought here illegally by her parents when she was just five years old. Like her peers at Meadowbrook High School in Chesterfield, she was supposed to be celebrating graduation from school; she had ended the year with awards from the National Honor Society and the school’s AP program. But unlike her peers, she was set not to go on to college but instead was scheduled in a few days to be deported along with her mother. The Obama administration’s “prosecutorial discretion” policy makes it quite clear that young people like Heydi should not be deported. But as the reformers have repeatedly told the administration, such people are still being removed from the country regularly. Unless, that is, somebody shines a big light on the case. In this case, the Post did, and the next day the Department of Homeland Security suspended Heydi and her mother’s deportation for a year. Here’s a rule of thumb: if you can’t defend a policy when its consequences are made public, it’s not a good policy. How about the Republicans? Presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigned hard on the issue in the primaries, accusing the Obama administration of being too lax on enforcement, and calling for still harsher measures that would persuade illegal migrants to “self-deport.” But on Monday, former Florida governor Jeb Bush rebuked Romney’s stance, calling for Republicans to adopt a “broader approach” that does not rely solely on enforcement. A Bush protégé and potential vice-presidential nominee, Senator Marco Rubio, is expected to introduce shortly a new version of the DREAM Act which would permit many young people like Heydi Mejia to remain in the United States Bush's interjection was followed by a strong statement Tuesday from a broad coalition of conservative evangelical groups, including Focus on the Family, calling for a policy that allows illegal migrants living in the United States “to come out of the shadows” and “begin the process of restitution.” They explicitly rejected the Romney policy of “self-deportation.” Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, was quoted as saying: "This is the tipping point to finally convince Republican operatives that they must redeem the narrative on immigration reform in order to be a viable party in America's political landscape in the 21st century.” The Romney campaign response was interesting. Instead of defending self-deportation, a campaign spokesman said: “Governor Romney believes that legal immigration is a source of strength for America and that to protect legal immigration we must address illegal immigration in a civil but resolute manner. As president, Governor Romney would work with any groups on a reform that strengthens legal immigration, secures our borders, respects those who are waiting patiently to enter legally and ensures that we do not encourage further illegal immigration." Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but that sounds an awful lot like the position that Republicans like Jeb Bush have long been advocating. I served as project director for the 2009 CFR Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, which was co-chaired by Gov. Bush and former Clinton chief of staff Mack McLarty. Rev. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, was also a member of the Task Force. We called for legislation that: • Reforms the legal immigration system so that it operates more efficiently, responds more accurately to labor market needs, and enhances U.S. competitiveness; • Restores the integrity of immigration laws through an enforcement regime that strongly discourages employers and employees from operating outside that legal system, secures America's borders, and levies significant penalties against those who violate the rules; • Offers a fair, humane, and orderly way to allow many of the roughly twelve million migrants currently living illegally in the United States to earn the right to remain legally. Those three pillars are still the basics of any sensible immigration reform. Certainly, none of this is likely in the near term. But the discussion in both parties marks a growing recognition that the status quo on immigration is indefensible, which makes long overdue change a real possibility.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden June 13, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    A Long-Term Fix for Long-Term Unemployment
    The gaps in the U.S. social safety net are about to become very large holes. For the past several years, lawmakers have repeatedly voted to extend unemployment insurance benefits, most recently in February. But in many states those benefits are running out, leaving the long-term unemployed with choices that range from bad to awful. This moment was inevitable, and should compel Washington to re-think how it supports jobless workers. As my colleague Matthew Slaughter, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has explained, the current unemployment insurance system was designed in the 1930s and has remained largely unchanged. It is premised on the idea that unemployment is the consequence of cyclical downturns, and that government’s role is to provide short-term support during recessions for workers who will likely be rehired in the same industries (and usually by the same employer) when the economy recovers. That system has been inadequate for some time in the face of more intense global competition and faster technological change that has left more workers without the skills they need to find new jobs. The Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative recently charted historical long-term unemployment (those out of work a year or more). The chart below shows that the problem had already become somewhat bigger over the past thirty years, with the numbers of long-term unemployed remaining higher for longer after each recession. But it really spiked following the recession in 2008-2009, sending the numbers up to record levels of more than 30 percent of all unemployed. Even that huge figure is understated. The number of workers collecting Social Security disability payments has jumped 22 percent, or some 1.6 million workers, since the start of the recession, taking them out of the workforce or off the unemployment rolls. Nearly all of those will never return to work. The biggest problem for the unemployed remains sluggish growth and lack of demand. For every available job, there are still more than four unemployed workers, and that gap will not shrink unless the economy grows faster. But the current system does very little to help the long-term unemployed prepare for those positions that are open. There are currently some 3.7 million jobs openings in the United States, a number that has increased steadily since the official end of the recession in 2009. Both critics and supporters of unemployment insurance are in agreement that the program should do more to retrain workers for those jobs. Slaughter and Harvard University economist Robert Lawrence have argued for replacing the current unemployment insurance scheme with an “American Adjustment Program” that would bring together the current unemployment insurance program with elements of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program and current job training programs. Their scheme, which was laid out in greater detail in work done with former Bush trade official Grant Aldonas, has four main components: • A “training stipend” that would be available to every unemployed worker to help cover the cost of retraining. • Tax deductibility both for companies and individuals that invest in retraining. • Continued health insurance for all unemployed workers. • A “wage loss insurance” program that would encourage older workers to find new jobs at lower wages by replacing up to 50 percent of their lost wage income for two years. The obvious objection to such a program is the cost, but by any reasonable measure it is surprisingly affordable. They estimate the annual additional cost at $22 billion; spending on the current unemployment insurance program is expected to be $99 billion in FY2012, and hit $159 billion in FY2010. The additional proposed spending is small, and looks smaller still if we take into account the big losses to the economy from long-term unemployment, losses felt through reduced incomes, lower productivity, and shrunken output. Further, they propose a simple, logical way to fund the scheme – replace the current regressive payroll tax in which lower paid workers proportionately bear a much greater burden with a flat assessment of roughly 1.3 percent on all wages. That would be a fairer payroll tax that would actually reduce taxes for lower-wage workers. With the possible exception of wage loss insurance, which remains controversial, none of this should be all that difficult politically. Liberals would welcome the additional support for unemployed workers, and the scheme would address conservative worries that unemployment insurance discourages people from returning to work. With the political appetite for another short-term fix waning, it is time for a longer term solution.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 29, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Peter Thiel and the Great College Debate
    Should more Americans go to college? I would have thought the answer is an unequivocal yes. The evidence is overwhelming that college graduates have lower unemployment rates, earn far more money, and are generally healthier and happier than those with a high school education or less. And young people seem persuaded. College enrollment rates for high school grads have risen from 44 percent in 1989 to nearly 60 percent last year. Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Paypal, disagrees. And his willingness to spend millions of his own fortune to pay bright young people to drop out and start businesses earned him a national audience Sunday night on 60 Minutes, the country's most-watched news program. My first reaction was to agree with entrepreneur-scholar Vivek Wadhwa, who has lambasted Thiel for selling young people on the fantasy of hitting the entrepreneurial jackpot without an advanced education. “If you don't even have a bachelor's degree, if you don't even have basic education, basically you are beyond hope,” Wadhwa told CBS. After listening to Thiel’s argument, however, I think he has a point. While he's utterly wrong on the virtues of dropping out (the fortunate few like Mark Zuckerman excepted), he's right that the compact between what college promises and what society is delivering is increasingly frayed. Here's what the deal is supposed to be: parents sacrifice to help their kids through college because that is the surest road to advancement. But over the past two decades, the road has become a lot bumpier. Numbers compiled earlier this month by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) show that the hourly wage of recent college graduates, after rising sharply at the end of the 1990s, has fallen back. Starting wages for college grads today are only slightly higher than in 1990, or just under $17 an hour in 2011 dollars. Unemployment is near 10 percent and underemployment nearly 20 percent. And new graduates are entering the job market with much greater debt burdens. As tuition continues to rise, two-thirds of students are borrowing to earn bachelor's degrees, up from 45 percent in the early 1990s. Wadhwa rightly points out that the average debt load on graduation -- $23,300 – is not excessive, but that may only begin to count the costs. A Washington Post piece Tuesday, provocatively titled "Is College Too Easy?" noted that the time students spend studying has dropped steadily over the years. But the main reason seems to be that more and more students are holding down part-time jobs to finance their education, reducing the time available for classwork. In short, students are paying more, borrowing more, and getting less. Thiel's response to these trends is to give up on higher education and encourage young people to take up plumbing or roll the dice on launching a business. That's the wrong response. If the EPI numbers for recent college grads are depressing, the picture for those with less education is positively Dickensian. Recent high school grads entering the workforce have an unemployment rate over 30 percent and an underemployment rate over 50 percent, and those lucky enough to find jobs are earning less than $10 an hour. As I know from playing the board game Life's Twists and Turns with my kids, with some luck you can make it big as an actor or an athlete. But the odds of winning the game go way up with a college degree. Neither am I persuaded, however, that the right response is just to rally around the colleges as they are currently doing business. Sure, the elite institutions can keep raising tuition, confident that student demand far exceeds supply, the brand value of a Harvard or Stanford justifies the expense, and their large endowments will open doors for some who would otherwise be turned away. But state universities cannot play their traditional role as ladders of opportunity if funding continues to be slashed. California, which has the nation’s flagship public system, has seen state funding cut precipitously; it is now at the same level as 1997-1998, when there were 73,000 fewer students. And both state schools and smaller private colleges need to get creative at doing more with less. This could include expanded online learning, greater specialization (not every school can and should be offering the full range of courses in all subjects) and new faculty hiring models that mix superstar professors with hands-on instructors. There are some fascinating initiatives under way, though the biggest ones such as EdX and MITx are led by the elite universities. Peter Thiel clearly struck a chord when he said on 60 Minutes that college education is a “bubble.” Too many young people  are overpaying for a product whose returns are increasingly uncertain. But the product is one that both individuals and American society badly need. The challenge is to make it much better, and more affordable, than it is currently.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 22, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Visas, the Economy, and 9/11: Will Evidence Trump Fear?
    Will Congress finally act to solve some of the problems with visa issuance that have plagued the United States over the past decade?
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 18, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Business, Immigration, and Political Dysfunction
    I had not intended it this way, but this will be my second item in just a week on political dysfunction in Washington. I participated yesterday in a superb forum on the prospects for immigration reform, hosted by former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin and organized by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. The presentation featured an extremely thoughtful presentation by economist Giovanni Peri proposing a pilot project for a scheme to auction visas, which has the potential to regulate more effectively demand and supply for new immigrant workers, and to raise extra revenue from the companies that benefit. It deserves serious attention. I moderated a panel that featured former Senator Chuck Hagel, National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia, UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm, and Glenn Hutchins, the co-founder of Silver Lake, a big private equity investor in technology companies. I wanted to come away encouraged. While immigration reform is a poster child for political dysfunction, Wilhelm was optimistic about the political winds gradually shifting in favor of some action. Murguia was far less dismissive than I thought she would be of Senator Marco Rubio’s recent proposal for a DREAM Act that did not provide an automatic path to citizenship for undocumented young people brought here illegally as children. Instead, while criticizing some aspects, she welcomed it as a proposal worthy of discussion. But what stuck with me were comments made by Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake, who works closely with the technology companies that are scouring the world for talented engineers. Wilhelm, who played a key role in bringing the union movement around to support immigration reform, commented that one of the reasons immigration has been stuck in Congress is that business has simply not made it a high enough priority. “The business community has got to put its political muscle where its economic interests lie,” he said. Hutchins response was both witty and inciteful, and worth quoting at length: “The vast majority of business people have this quaint notion that their role is to run their business and the politicians’ role is to run government. And coming to Washington and being told the reason why government is not running well is because business is not involved is, well….. an interesting set of insights. We do come. The typical business person comes to Washington with the notion that this is something we ought to do. They are then treated sort of like the bright eighth grader on the school trip – what a cute little kid, tap him on the head – ‘don’t you realize that nothing gets done it this town. Just go away and let us wallow in dysfunction, and by the way leave a campaign check at the door.’" “There is a very broad and growing view in the world of people who get things done,” he continued, “that nothing gets done here, and it’s largely not worth your time. “ If Hutchins is right, and I think he is, there should be alarm bells going off everywhere. The issue is not whether business has enough influence in Washington – compared with any other organized group, it probably has too much. The problem is that even business, with all its political muscle, can’t get Washington to move on whole range of issues. Even where business and unions have come together -- in supporting expanded infrastructure investment, for instance -- nothing happens. And the reality is that many U.S. businesses need the United States less and less. Marschall Smith, general counsel at 3M who spoke on an earlier panel, said the company has simply been unable to attract the number of advanced scientists and engineers and skilled technicians it needs in the United States. “The result is we’re being forced to export R&D to China and India, notably, and elsewhere around the world because we can get the scientists there. And of course if the scientists and the labs are there, the low-skilled jobs spring up when we open a factory. We’re an American company being forced overseas when we could do a better and more efficient job in the United States, because we simply can’t get the people.” It is comforting to hope that political stasis in Washington has few costs because, after all, the private sector has always been the more dynamic part of American society. Comforting, but wrong. Business can now go and be dynamic somewhere else while Washington “wallows in dysfunction.”
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 16, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Policy Initiative Spotlight: Can Elite Education Be Free?
    Congress this week has been debating the growing debt burden faced by American college students. Today’s “Policy Initiative Spotlight” examines the recent expansion of free, online university education led by several elite institutions. Renewing America contributor Steven J. Markovich examines some of the newest endeavors, which could multiply the impact of America’s universities and help to control costs for students. Despite an underperforming K-12 education system—the subject of the CFR Independent Task Force on U.S. Education Reform and National Security—U.S. universities continue to lead world rankings; in 2011, fifteen American universities placed in the top twenty-five according to U.S. News and World Report. High performing universities improve U.S. competitiveness by strengthening the workforce and anchoring innovation clusters. Several premier institutions have launched initiatives to use online education to spread their lessons far beyond campus. In May 2012, Harvard and MIT debuted edX, an open source non-profit joint venture. EdX will offer free online classes and advance research on how technology can help on-campus and online students learn. Each university will contribute $30 million and course materials. While the coursework is free, the universities are contemplating charging for certificates of course completion. EdX is based on the technology of MITx, MIT’s online education platform launched in December 2011.  MITx was designed to enrich the education of full-time students, and allow millions more to learn online. EdX built upon this approach to create student-paced learning through video lectures, collaborative online labs, and online testing with real-time feedback and student ranked Q&A’s.  The edX platform is open-source and other institutions are invited to join. The universities say they believe that online education will “never replace the traditional residential model of undergraduate education.” They don’t perceive a significant brand and market cannibalization risk, which is understandable given their single digit acceptance rates. But EdX already faces competition from for-profit startups backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Udacity has its roots in Stanford’s 2011 experiment to put its introductory computer science course online; 160,000 students signed up and 23,000 students passed. In-class attendance dwindled from 200 to around 30 students as on-campus students opted to learn online. Sebastian Thurn, who co-taught this course, left Stanford to co-found Udacity. Thurn’s intent is for Udacity to become a free premier online university: “The biggest problem [in higher education] is cost.  Student loans are going up 6 percent a year whereas the return on that education is going down. We’re clearly in a bubble.” Regarding Udacity’s potential impact, he said: “You could get an entire computer science education for free right now,” he said. “You could take your tablet with you, you learn on the bus, and take these minutes and learn how to learn for a lifetime.” Another for-profit startup is Coursera, which offers free access to course content from affiliated universities: Stanford, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Michigan.  Coursera raised $16 million in venture capital investment in April 2012. Co-Founder Andrew Ng explained that “[Raising capital] “allows us to focus for a while on building an exceptional platform without having to worry about revenue.” While both Coursera and Udacity offer free course materials, neither has explained their ultimate revenue model. Observers have speculated that they could charge for access to supplemental learning materials or to provide certification of achievement. While these efforts will improve access to college and graduate level learning, there are also similar efforts to improve K-12 education. Since 2006, the non-profit Khan Academy has provided free online videos covering a wide range of topics, from algebra to the French Revolution. In March 2012, TED launched its educational initiative, TED-Ed, with original educational videos designed to spark curiosity. The initiative entered its second phase with a website that allows teachers to create customized online lessons. Using the free “Flip this Lesson” service, teachers create can custom lessons for any video on TED or YouTube. Teachers can track the performance of individual students through multiple choice quizzes and free response questions, and target classroom instruction to reinforce difficult concepts.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 11, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Starbucks, Charity, and Job Creation: An Odd Mix That Could Actually Work
    I am rarely surprised when I go to Starbucks. The coffee is always about the same (good), and the menu of pastry items is thoroughly predictable (and not so good). But the other day, amidst the CDs and other miscellany at checkout, I noticed a small badge asking for a $5 donation. “Let’s Create JOBS for USA” it implored, offering a snazzy red, white, and blue wristband in return. I was taken aback.  I have donated to help poor children, to end famines,  to cure and prevent diseases, to help the homeless, to build bike trails, to save wild animals and wild places, and dozens of other causes. But it had never occurred to me to make a charitable contribution to “create JOBS.” Have we as a country really sunk this far? Must we now rely on charity to employ Americans? So I asked my research assistant Jane McMurrey to have a deeper look. The story is this. Since November 2011, Starbucks has partnered with an organization called the Opportunity Finance Network, which is a revolving fund that provides financing for community development financial institutions.  These are essentially small  lenders such as credit unions that make loans to community businesses and other enterprises that would otherwise lack access to capital. There is a real gap here. Hal Sirkin of the Boston Consulting Group, who has been doing superb work on the improving prospects for American manufacturing, noted recently in Business Week that we are seeing far fewer small business start-ups than a decade ago, which is hampering job creation. In 2000, he wrote, there were more than 630,000 companies in the United States less than a year old, and they employed 4.6 million people; in 2010, there were just over 500,000 start-ups, and they employed fewer than 2.5 million people. The big problem, he argues, has been limited access to credit. The Opportunity Finance Network and other similar enterprises are trying to fill that hole, and they have a good track record of doing it in a responsible way. From its launch in 1990 through the end of 2009, OFN has provided $125 million in financing to the lenders in its network. These institutions have collectively offered $10 billion in financing to borrowers shunned by traditional lenders, which has created or maintained an estimated 135,000 jobs, built 86,000 housing units and contributed to community projects like the construction of charter schools. Write-offs are less than 2 percent of loans. Encouraging small business startups is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on these days. Congress recently passed, and President Obama signed, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act making it easier for new companies to raise funds from small investors. The Starbucks campaign, a personal initiative of CEO Howard Schultz who has rightly called the current level of unemployment “a national jobs emergency,” will provide a real boost to OFN’s resources. As of the end of March 31, the latest figures released, Starbucks says that “Create Jobs for USA” has raised over $7 million, including an initial $5 million donation from Starbucks, which has been leveraged into $50 million in loans resulting in the creation or retention of about 2,300 jobs. Fairly small, but a good start. Google Offers and Banana Republic recently agreed to support the initiative as well, and other companies are being urged to join. It makes some practical sense. Schultz has rightly figured out that one of Starbucks’ assets is that it has millions of customers who come in regularly and drop $4 or $5 on a coffee drink. If even a handful of those pay another $5 for a wristband, that adds up to a lot of money that can leveraged into worthwhile, job-creating projects through community finance. I wrote a couple of months ago on the efforts being made by the Harvard Business School to persuade companies to invest in building the competitive capacity of the United States, through education, job-training, and building networks of local suppliers. The Starbucks initiative, despite my initial skepticism, seems like an innovative effort to do exactly that. Now excuse me, I’m going to go get a cup of coffee and a wristband.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden May 3, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Reinventing the Sino-American Relationship
    China and the United States are in the grip of major structural changes that both dread will end the Halcyon era when China produced low-cost goods and the U.S. bought them. In particular, many fear that if these changes lead to direct competition between the two countries, only one side can win. That fear is understandable, but the premise is mistaken. Both sides can and should gain from forging a new relationship that reflects evolving structural realities: China’s growth and size relative to the U.S.; rapid technological change, which automates processes and displaces jobs; and the evolution of global supply chains, driven by developing countries’ rising incomes. But first they must acknowledge that the old pattern of mutually beneficial interdependence really has run its course, and that a new model is needed. The old model served both sides well for three decades. China’s growth was driven by labor-intensive exports made more competitive by transfers of technology and knowledge from the U.S. and other Western countries. This, coupled with massive Chinese public and private investment (enabled by high – and recently excessive – savings), underpinned rising incomes for millions of Chinese. The U.S. consumer, meanwhile, benefited greatly from declining relative prices of manufactured goods in the tradable side of the economy. Accordingly, U.S. employment shifted to higher-value-added activities, in turn supporting higher incomes in America, too. Multinational companies operated increasingly efficient and complex global supply chains, which could be reconfigured as the shifting pattern of comparative advantage dictated. Global supply chains ran largely from east to west, reflecting the composition and location of demand in the tradable part of the global economy. But all of this is starting to change. The benefits are shifting from cost to growth. Supply chains are now running in both directions, and are being combined in novel ways. Chinese demand is not only growing, but, as incomes rise, its composition is shifting to more sophisticated goods and services. Thus, China’s role is changing: once the West’s low-cost supplier, it is now becoming a major customer for Western products. This represents a major opportunity for advanced economies to rebalance their growth and employment, provided that they are positioned to compete for the appropriate parts of evolving supply chains. Rising Chinese incomes also imply structural change for China, as continued growth presupposes a shift to higher-value activities. Technology and knowledge will still be important, but China must begin generating new technologies, in addition to absorbing Western tools and skills. In order to meet the challenges of structural change, the goal for U.S. policy should be to expand the scope of its tradable sector, with a focus on employment. Reorienting U.S. policy toward external demand across a broader array of sectors, in turn, requires attention to two critical areas: education and investment. High-quality education and more effective skills development are crucial to generating new employment opportunities for the middle class, while investment can rectify America’s disconnection – particularly that of its medium-size businesses – from global supply chains. The trading companies and infrastructure that smaller, more open economies have created in order to connect to global markets are underdeveloped in the U.S. To be sure, success in these areas will not come overnight. But nor is the status quo a permanent condition; it can be improved with investment and supportive policy. Moreover, the U.S. would benefit in the short term from relatively simple measures, such as removing barriers to inward foreign direct investment, particularly from China. On the Chinese side, policy prescriptions are not the issue. The importance of evolving a different growth pattern is already understood, and has been enshrined in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan. Its successful implementation will require strengthening incentives to innovate, deepening the technology base, investing more in human capital, developing the financial sector, and applying competition policy equally to domestic, foreign, and state-owned enterprises. Given the requirements on both sides, how to ensure a productive and mutually beneficial relationship between the U.S. and China is a relatively straightforward matter. China still needs access to advanced-country markets and technology, but the emphasis is shifting to homegrown knowledge, skills, and innovation. The U.S., still an innovation powerhouse, can help, but requires access to the growing Chinese market and a level playing field once there. The same is true of financial-sector development. In the U.S., a determined effort to restore fiscal balance and establish a sustainable growth pattern – that is, one not based on excessive domestic consumption – is crucial to long-term economic health. Such rebalancing implies sustained reduction of the current-account deficit by expanding exports, rather than merely curtailing imports. Chinese demand will help, all the more so as its economy grows in size and sophistication. So expanding linkages with China now is an investment in the future with a rising return, rather than a quick fix. A lower U.S. current-account deficit will also benefit China, whose $3.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves – held mostly in dollar-denominated assets – is becoming a large and risky investment. Progress towards external balance in the U.S. would allow a slow reduction in China’s reserves, alleviating its asset-management headache. A deeper understanding of each other’s shifting structural challenges would facilitate both sides’ ability to identify areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. But the core of the relationship is simple: China needs U.S. innovation to grow, and the U.S. needs Chinese markets to grow. If both countries are to benefit from such symbiosis, there is no alternative to collaboration, substantial investment, and reforms on both sides of the Pacific. This article originally appeared at www.project-syndicate.org.
    Blog Post by A. Michael Spence April 23, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Policy Initiative Spotlight: Louisiana’s Educational Overhaul
    Today's "Policy Initiative Spotlight" focuses on the sweeping education reforms taking place in the state of Louisiana, which is fast becoming a kind of national laboratory for proponents of choice-based school reforms. Renewing America contributor Steven J. Markovich looks at the initiative, and what's at stake for the larger debate over school reform. The greatest long term threat to U.S. economic vitality may be the failure of the K-12 educational system to prepare students to compete in the global economy. While underperforming K-12 schools are a national concern, most control is exercised at the state and local levels. On April 18, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed legislation into law overhauling Louisiana’s educational system. Prominent aspects include creating a statewide voucher program, empowering superintendents to deploy “merit pay,” and allowing a majority vote of parents to transfer control of poor performing schools to the state, called the “parent trigger." The most hotly debated issue is vouchers. The legislation will extend the New Orleans voucher program statewide and raise the income threshold to include more middle class families; families of four earning roughly $57,000 or less should qualify. While 1,800 New Orleans students are attending schools with vouchers, an estimated 380,000 Louisiana students could be eligible, though state leaders expect only a few thousand to apply initially. The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and other proponents argue vouchers improve educational opportunities for children by giving parents the freedom to choose their child’s school and encouraging competition among public and private schools. Parents of voucher students seem to agree; 93 percent said they were satisfied in a survey by the voucher supporting Louisiana Federation for Children. Not everyone is so sanguine. Andrew Vanacore of The Times-Picayune argues that while parental support is strong, there are not enough data to judge the impact on student performance. He cites mixed results from Louisiana test data, and studies of other voucher programs. Education pundit Diane Ravitch—who participated in Renewing America’s Expert Roundup on Education Reform and U.S. Competitiveness—recently wrote a blog entry on the legislation at EducationWeek, in which she stated that “[Louisiana State Superintendent John White] had no substantive response to my research review showing that charters, vouchers, and merit pay don't produce better education.” There is considerable debate on the other measures of the Louisiana legislation. Proponents of merit pay—paying teachers according to performance or marketable skills—argue that it allows schools to reward the best teachers, and to attract people to the teaching field in subject areas such as science where there is greater competition in the general economy. Washington DC’s merit pay program is touted as an important way to keep excellent young teachers teaching. The major public teacher unions, such as the American Federation of Teachers, generally oppose merit pay in favor of traditional salary schedules. Opponents of merit pay often claim that student test scores—an important component of most merit pay formulas—do not accurately capture student achievement and teacher performance. The Louisiana legislation also gives parents the power to hand over operation of a failing school to the state controlled Recovery School District (RSD) with a majority vote. Governor Jindal argued for the “parent trigger” by stressing how it empowers parents: "This is about making sure all parents have an opportunity to get a quality education for their children." Detractors are concerned that charter operators may coax parents into voting for a takeover to create a business opportunity, because most RSD schools become public charters. The Louisiana experience will be closely watched by the rest of the nation. The enactment of these policies may help provide data to better inform the debates over school choice and is likely to influence the reform efforts of other states.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden April 20, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Interview: Parsing U.S. Immigration Reform
    The Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments on Arizona's controversial immigration law, which will have a significant impact on the national debate. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been taking steps to loosen procedures for undocumented immigrants with U.S. citizen relatives (PDF) while conducting broad nationwide sweeps of undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds. In the following CFR.org interview, CFR's Senior Fellow Edward Alden says President Obama "has been very determined to maintain the tough enforcement stance that was established in the second term of the Bush administration," despite criticism from within his administration. Alden says that the issues of encouraging legal, skilled immigration and enacting enforcement policies for illegal immigration are "intimately connected," but says that in light of Washington politics, comprehensive reform will likely be put on hold in favor of narrower, more targeted legislation. In January, the Obama administration announced procedural changes for "unlawful presence waivers." Can you give some background on this? This is an administrative change that tries to address a long-existing Catch-22 in U.S. immigration law. It dates back to an act passed by Congress in 1996. The problem is this: you have people living in the United States unlawfully, who have a right to stay--they have married a U.S. citizen, or they have some other claim to adjust their status to be able to remain in the United States permanently. The way existing law operates, in order to apply for that change of status, you have to return to your home country and make the application at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. But under the 1996 act, if you have been living in the United States illegally for a significant period of time, you are thereby automatically barred from returning to the United States for periods of as long as ten years, and in most cases, at least five years. Therefore, say you're a Mexican undocumented immigrant with a legal claim to remain in the United States; you go back to Mexico to file the application. At that point, the five- or ten-year bar immediately kicks in, and then you have to apply for the U.S. government to waive that statutory bar that keeps you out of the country, and it can take years for those waivers to be processed. What the Obama administration is doing is making a fairly small change that says if you're an individual who has a legal case to remain in the United States, you can apply for that adjustment of status while you remain in the country, and you can apply for the waiver from that five- or ten-year bar. That means that in theory, when you finally have to go back to your country to finalize the change of status, it will be a fairly brief stay out of the United States, rather than an extended period of years, as it is under the current procedures. How profound an impact will this change have? The numbers aren't clear. It is suggested that maybe there are as many as a million individuals out of the estimated undocumented population of ten to eleven [million] who might potentially benefit from this waiver. There are critics on the Hill and elsewhere that are saying that this is "backdoor amnesty," and I think that is a misreading of what's been done. No individuals will be eligible for legalization under this provision who aren't already eligible. It's only people who have a legitimate claim under current U.S. immigration law to remain in the country legally. It's essentially a humane change to try to reduce the time that families are separated in order to run the hurdle of the immigration laws. To call it "backdoor amnesty" is a complete mischaracterization of what's been done. To read the full interview, click here...
    Blog Post by Jonathan Masters April 19, 2012 Renewing America
  • Education
    Visas and Travel: One Step Forward, Two to Go
    Large, bureaucracies are notoriously difficult to move, but when they do it can sometimes happen with extraordinary speed. Consider what has happened on U.S. visa processing over the past six months or so. In the decade since 9/11, long wait times for visa interviews have been a chronic problem, eliciting complaints from business, the tourist industry, universities, and others. The State Department has periodically thrown additional resources at the problem in one country or another, but the fixes rarely lasted for long. Then in January, 2012, President Obama went to Disneyworld, in the tourist dependent and electorally important state of Florida, and announced the goal of increasing the number of visas processed for Chinese and Brazilians by 40 percent this year. Since that speech, the waiting time for visa applicants has plummeted in both countries. In Brazil, the wait times in Recife for visitors visas have fallen from seventy-five days to seven; in Rio de Janeiro, it’s down from thirty-six days to two. Even in Sao Paulo, where the wait time remains thirty-five days, that’s less than half what it was in January. And in the major posts in China, visa wait times are no longer a significant obstacle to visiting the United States. In both countries, the number of visas being processed is already 40-60 percent higher than a year ago. The big winner will be the U.S. economy. The progress did not begin with President Obama’s speech. The State Department, led by Deputy Secretary Tom Nides, has made visa processing a priority, and the recent gains are a result of ongoing investments in increased staff and improved procedures. It is too early to say whether the progress will continue, but it certainly shows that big gains are possible when serious commitments are made at high levels in the government. Which is all the more reason that the Obama administration should seize the opportunity on two other fronts. The first is the ludicrously long processing times for what is euphemistically known as “administrative processing.” These are the tediously slow security background checks still conducted on hundreds of thousands of visa applicants each year. As the New York Times detailed last week, the background checks are so prevalent and so arbitrary that many foreign artists and performers are simply giving up on the United States, because they have no way of knowing if they will be granted a visa in time to make a scheduled show. The number of visas issued to foreign performers has fallen 25 percent in the past four years, according to the article. As I wrote earlier this year with immigration attorney Liam Schwartz, the U.S. government already has the capability to move forward with a security screening system that would be far more efficient and would in no way compromise security. Yet unlike the visa wait times issue, this one has never made it out of the mid levels of the bureaucracy. Without a clear message from very senior levels, bureaucratic caution will always trump sensible reform. The second is expanding visa-free travel to the United States. As I laid out in an article in Foreign Affairs last week, entitled “If You Extend the Visa Waiver Program, They Will Come,” the United States has the capability to ease travel to the United States and enhance security at the same time. This is one of those genuinely rare “win-wins,” and there are no good reasons to delay expanding the program. It was positive, therefore, to see the commitment made last week by President Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to begin work on bringing Brazil into the Visa Waiver Program. Delays in visa processing have done much over the past decade to harm the U.S. economy and to damage the U.S. image as an open, welcoming country. The recent progress is encouraging, but there is still much to be done.
    Blog Post by Edward Alden April 17, 2012 Renewing America