Policy Currents | The newsletter for policy people
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** June 18, 2024
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The State of the American Teacher
With more working hours and lower average base pay, teachers report worse well-being than other working adults. RAND research shows that this has been a consistent pattern since 2021.
According to the latest RAND State of the American Teacher survey, an annual study of K12 public school teachers across the United States, teachers report working an average of 53 hours per week. That's compared with 44 hours for similar working adults. And only 36 percent of teachers say that their base pay is adequate compared with 51 percent of their counterparts. The responses also reveal teachers' top sources of stress in 2024: managing student behavior, low salary, and administrative work outside of teaching.
Further, Black teachers report working significantly more hours per week, on average, than their peers, while female teachers report significantly higher rates of frequent job-related stress and burnout than male teachers. This raises questions about the sustainability of the profession for Black and female educators in particular.
This is the fourth consecutive year RAND has collected data that raise concerns about high stress and low pay in the teacher workforce. Our insights may help federal, state, and local education leaders and policymakers better understand the challenges facing America's teachers.
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Russia Poses Serious Threats to the Baltics
Some commentators have dubbed the Baltic Sea "Lake NATO," both because almost the entire coastline now belongs to NATO members and because Russia's military forces are being damaged by the ongoing war in Ukraine. But according to a new RAND paper, Russia still poses considerable threats to the Baltic Sea region. For instance, Moscow maintains the ability to launch ballistic and cruise missiles that could target vessels and coastal locations. NATO must avoid complacency and continue to improve its capabilities in the Baltics, the authors write.
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October Surprise: A North Korean Nuclear Test?
Some in the United States worry that North Korea could carry out an "October surprise" by conducting a nuclear weapon test. We can't know for sure whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would take such action, but he has several reasons for doing so, says RAND's Bruce Bennett. For example, Kim may be eager to affect the results of the U.S. presidential election. Kim knows that President Joe Biden is unwilling to compromise with North Korea. But Kim may hope that former President Donald Trump would be willing to bargain if he won a second term, just as he did in the 2018 Singapore Summit. Kim may even hope that his dream of North Korea being recognized as a nuclear weapon state could be realized, Bennett says.
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** RAND Recommends
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- The RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute recently hosted a webinar to discuss new research on LGBTQ+ veterans' health, the impact of state policies, and more.
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- RAND's Timothy Heath discussed Beijing's attempts to control Chinese diaspora and dissidents worldwide: "It's not a coincidence that the Chinese government today has become more concerned about [dissidents] in a time when Beijing's performance is disappointing."
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- In the New York Times, RAND's Samuel Charap discussed why Russian President Vladimir Putin's public stance on a cease-fire in Ukraine has hardened and why this doesn't mean that the Kremlin wouldn't budge at the negotiating table.
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** Events
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Policy Lab: How to Reach Policy Decisionmakers
Friday, June 21, 2024 (Online)
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