Education and Social Issues
Education Goes Global
 "Globalization" is a term that is hard for most Americans to avoid, as the nation increasingly must look beyond its borders to both compete in the world economy and ensure national security. But the education that most Americans receive does not reflect this reality. Less than half of all U.S. high school students were enrolled in a foreign language class in 2000, and even fewer young people study a language in college. U.S. students tend to understand less about beliefs, cultures, and history of other nations than do their counterparts in other countries. This lack of preparation comes at a time when government agencies that need foreign language professionals report severe shortages of qualified personnel, and U.S. businesses desperately seek professionals who understand foreign cultures and economies to increase their international presence and sales.
To address these concerns, the U.S. education system needs to develop an integrated approach to improving foreign language and culture skills and knowledge, says International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America's Future, a report by the National Research Council. The U.S. Department of Education should take a leadership role by ensuring that its foreign language and international education programs respond to both current and future needs.
The department does not currently have an overall view or master plan for its range of language and international programs, including the higher education programs known collectively as Title VI and Fulbright-Hays, says the report. Those programs were created nearly 50 years ago following the Soviet Union's surprise launch of Sputnik I. The shock of that technological triumph led the United States to make large increases in federal spending on education and scientific research.
The scope of these programs has grown over time to encompass undergraduate and graduate education in foreign languages, international studies, and area studies, which focus on particular regions of the world. The programs also promote greater use of technology, international business training, and the recruitment of minorities into international service professions. They have been successful in boosting the teaching of more than 250 less commonly taught languages, such as Mandarin and Bengali, and in developing instructional materials that are used in the federal government, K-12 education, and colleges and universities. However, funding and staff resources have not kept pace with the programs' growing mission, and solid data and well-designed evaluations of the programs are lacking.
An important first step toward strengthening the programs would be consolidating their oversight under a high-ranking official, preferably a presidential appointee, who would provide strategic direction and coordination, the report says. Congress also should require the U.S. secretary of education to lead development of an interagency biennial public report outlining national needs in this area, plans to tackle them, and progress toward goals.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
Better Forecasts for Metropolitan Planning
 Under federal law, metropolitan areas must develop transportation plans and programs to meet the needs of area commuters, travelers, and businesses. Typically, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) use computer models to forecast the impacts that population and employment growth or changes in land use might have on performance of the transportation system. These forecasts have often been used for infrastructure planning, such as evaluating whether new or expanded highway or transit facilities are needed. In recent years, MPOs also have been called on to use the models for new, complex evaluations relating to such matters as road pricing, land use planning, and homeland security.
A recent National Research Council report, Metropolitan Travel Forecasting: Current Practice and Future Direction, says that new computer models should be developed that are better able to meet the demands being made on them. Most MPOs use four-step models that perform some tasks reasonably well, such as forecasting aggregate demands on metropolitan transportation systems. But these models have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades and are inadequate for many of the new concerns that forecasting models are being asked to address. They are ill-suited to account for traveler behavior -- the how, when, and where an individual chooses to travel -- and also have difficulty in predicting commercial vehicle and freight movement. Shortcomings in practice, such as inadequate data, quality controls, and methods for validating models, also are affecting the accuracy of forecasts. The report identifies steps that federal, state, and local government agencies should take to improve both current and future practice in metropolitan travel forecasting.
To update current models and develop better ones for the future, MPOs could establish a national cooperative research program, the report says. Rather than duplicating the substantial costs that would be incurred with improving models and developing new ones, MPOs could pool a small portion of the funds they receive from the federal government and establish a central ongoing research and development program. Sharing research funds would be an efficient way to address model enhancement, development, and implementation, and other needs MPOs might have.
In addition, the federal government should provide leadership and resources for these activities, the report says. Federal requirements guide many MPO planning activities, and federal funds are being used to support the highest priority needs for maintenance and improvement of the national transportation system. The federal government should increase funding appropriately to support MPOs and state transportation agencies in developing new models. The U.S. Department of Transportation should seek authorization from Congress to provide an annual investment of .005 percent of the federal highway and transit capital program, or about $20 million, to improve or update the models. MPOs, state, and federal agencies also should form a standing steering committee that would meet regularly to establish goals, responsibilities, and means of improving travel forecasting practice.
To facilitate development and implementation of improved travel models, the report recommends creation of a handbook to provide the best current information for practitioners of travel modeling and forecasting. Implementation of a travel forecasting handbook could be achieved through a national organization that brings together practitioners and researchers from agencies, consulting firms, and academia; the primary stakeholders would be those responsible for conducting metropolitan travel forecasting.
The study was funded by the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, and the Transportation Research Board.
The Human Side of Military Research
 One of the central missions for U.S. armed forces in Iraq is to prepare and train the Iraqi army. This training is carried out on all levels and by all U.S. troops, from top military commanders to individual soldiers. Are these personnel prepared to carry out this and other aspects of their many missions? In the future, experts expect that U.S. forces will again be called upon to fight in other countries and to train troops from other cultures. The way they behave will determine the success of current and future missions.
Human Behavior in Military Contexts, a report from the National Research Council, outlines an agenda for basic behavioral and social science research focused on both near- and longer-term military needs in the increasingly complicated environments facing U.S. forces around the world. To accomplish its proposed goals, funding for studies across U.S. military research agencies should be doubled to about $75 million. This level of funding can support approximately 40 new projects per year across six areas of study the report identifies because of their relevance, potential impact, and timeliness.
-- Intercultural competence, or the ability to navigate and adapt to different cultures, is critical at every level of the military, from field operations to strategic planning. In particular, research in this area should focus on the ability to learn a second language and negotiate across cultural barriers.
-- Understanding team behavior and functioning are especially important for a team-structured military. Challenges for future research include understanding the complexities of teams as dynamic systems that change over time.
-- As technology and training play an increasingly important role in the military, it is critical that choice and use of a technology is based on solid evidence about learning and not simply driven by which technologies are available. Basic behavioral research in this area will enable military trainers to take advantage of an evidence-based approach to designing training for individuals and for teams.
-- Research has validated that people are rapidly influenced by the nonverbal signs around them. In the military, nonverbal communication directly affects leadership, persuasion, negotiation, cultural fluency, training, and learning. Although the nature of such communication has been difficult for researchers to study, the area is now rich with opportunities that allow new avenues for research.
-- Emotion affects almost every aspect of a person's behavior and performance, and in the military, troops can be subject to very intense emotions in stressful situations, such as grief and euphoria. Emotions also have long-term effects on health and functioning, both for military members and their families and units, and it is an important area for study.
-- Behavioral neurophysiology is the interplay between basic behavioral and biological processes, such as how human behavior and the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems affect one another. This area of research holds great promise for understanding the biological underpinnings of motivational, affective, and cognitive processes, and could make critical contributions to military procedures for personnel selection, training, and performance evaluation, the report says.
In addition to work on these key areas, the proposed new funding should allow for the establishment of a scientific foundation in basic behavioral and social research that could develop specific applications addressed to military needs.
After the report was released, the budget for basic research at the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences was doubled, and the Institute is incorporating the report's recommendations into its research agenda.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of the Army.
A Survey That Counts
 The census has been a critical source of data for many important public policy purposes, including allocating funds for education assistance and community development; for transportation planning; and for implementing the Voting Rights Act. The census "long-form" sample, in particular, provided detailed information on about one-sixth of the U.S. population, and data were available for states, counties, cities, towns, and neighborhoods. However, because the census is conducted only once every 10 years, there have always been limits to the long-form sample's usefulness.
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau eliminated the long-form sample, and censuses will now ask only basic questions of everyone, such as sex, age, race, ethnicity, household relationship, and owner/renter status. To obtain more-detailed data, the bureau started using the new American Community Survey (ACS) in 2005; a questionnaire is mailed each month to 250,000 U.S. addresses. In comparison with the long-form sample, the ACS provides many advantages, including more timely data, which is especially important for growing areas. The survey's much smaller sample size, however, will also introduce larger margins of error in the data and require that estimates for small areas be developed by averaging the data over three or five years. To ensure a smooth transition to using the ACS, the Census Bureau asked the National Research Council to assess the usability of the ACS data and provide some general guidelines for those who depend on it.
The resulting report, Using the American Community Survey: Benefits and Challenges, says the Census Bureau must make sufficient funding a top priority, not only for data collection and production, but also for educating users and supporting ongoing programs of methodological research and evaluation. The report identifies several areas for improving the design of the survey.
Specifically, the Census Bureau should identify ways to improve the precision of the ACS estimates for small geographic areas, particularly government jurisdictions. Significant increases in precision will require increasing the overall sample size, which will require additional funding from Congress, the report says. As part of the ACS research and development program, the Census Bureau should dedicate a portion of resources to pursue innovative, longer-term projects. The ACS may be able to provide information in ways that would not have been possible with the long-form sample and that are not even envisioned today.
The Census Bureau also needs to develop a comprehensive program to educate data users such as government planners, journalists, and researchers about how the ACS differs from the long-form sample and other data sources, the report says. In addition, paths should be developed for systematic feedback from users to improve training materials, identify potential problems with the ACS, and suggest ways to improve it. The report identifies a number of specific guidelines for users of the ACS data, such as carefully considering margins of error before drawing conclusions about a set of estimates.
The study was funded by the U.S. Census Bureau.
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