Five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, public school students haven't rebounded as everyone had hoped. One way to address this, says RAND's Julia Kaufman, is to ensure that teachers receive the training they need to effectively use curriculum materials. (Recent RAND survey data show that only about 10 percent of U.S. teachers say their training program emphasized this.) “It takes considerable skill and subject-matter knowledge to use any materials thoughtfully and productively,” Kaufman says. Ample, hands-on training can enable teachers to help more students catch up and meet state academic standards.

North Korea's growing friendship with Russia could yield benefits that embolden Kim Jong-un, says RAND's Naoko Aoki. To start, the Korean People's Army is gaining valuable combat experience fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine. Pyongyang may also believe that cooperation with Russia will create space to pursue its goals more assertively. One way the United States can prevent such cooperation from becoming a bigger problem, Aoki says, is to “show unflinching support for South Korea's defense.”