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Describes an education policy game that would reveal the perspectives of different stakeholder groups on current education issues and offers some thoughts on game development and improvement.
State election laws on early voting, remote voting, and voter registration could have implications for the execution of an election under conditions brought on by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. In this report, the authors summarize state election laws on early voting, remote voting, and voter registration, and they discuss the potential implications for the execution of the November 2020 general election.
Several voting and registration options are available to states to ensure the safety of elections despite the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This report outlines these options, considering the factors that officials will have to examine in determining how to conduct the election safely; the advantages and challenges of each approach; and the levels of risk regarding safety, integrity, access, and logistics.
State election laws on voter registration, remote voting, and early voting could have implications for the execution of an election under conditions brought on by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This tool supplements a companion report and provides state-by-state granular details, including references to relevant state laws, about each of these aspects of voting.
Teachers play a crucial role in supporting students' civic development, which is one way of countering Truth Decay—the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. This Data Note, one in a series, describes changes in high school social studies teachers' perspectives regarding the importance of teaching various topics related to students' civic development and regarding the role of social studies instruction more generally.
This report examines the privacy implications of the use of mobile phone surveillance programs for pandemics.
As part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide have deployed mobile phone surveillance programs to augment public health interventions. However, these programs raise privacy concerns. The authors of this report examine whether two goals can be achieved concurrently: the use of mobile phones as public health surveillance tools to help manage COVID 19 and future crises, and the protection of privacy and civil liberties.
The disclosure of timely and accurate information can promote bottom-up problem-solving and adherence to coronavirus disease 2019 crisis-management policies. Open data portals could allow community members access to the most up-to-date information. In this Perspective, researchers use Los Angeles's open data portal to develop generalizable strategies that city leaders could adopt to improve the utility of their open data portals.
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has been challenging for parents as schools and child care centers closed or switched to distance learning. Researchers examine which parents need the most support. Parents with children in different age groups and those with more financial difficulty appear to need more support than those whose children are closer in age and who are not struggling financially.
Public schools that serve kindergarteners through 12th graders can play a key role in combating Truth Decay by supporting students' civic development and engagement. Teachers' instructional materials provide one window into civic education in schools. This Data Note unpacks ways in which social studies teachers across the United States reported using instructional materials in their classrooms to teach civics.
Despite widespread stay-at-home orders as a response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, most Americans have not changed their online shopping habits. RAND researchers examine who was more likely to increase their online shopping habits and why. People in more-affluent households and those who are younger were more likely to increase their online shopping habits. Gender and urbanicity made very little difference.
This report describes key aspects of Israeli municipalities and explores (1) the adoption of a regional approach to address the fragmented nature of municipal governance, (2) the training and placement of personnel in managerial municipal positions, and (3) the improvement of education services—with a view toward strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of local government in Israel for municipalities to be more-active agents for change.
How much taxpayer money is spent on police, courts, and legal services to respond to crime? RAND researchers provide estimated costs by crime type and by state in a new tool. The tool includes a map that allows users to visualize the differences in costs across the United States. Users can download parts of the data or the full data set in a variety of formats.
Public schools that serve kindergarteners through 12th graders can play a key role in combating Truth Decay by supporting students' civic development and engagement. This Data Note examines teachers' reports regarding how they and their schools promote media literacy and appropriate use of media by students. It also summarizes teachers' perceptions of challenges associated with media literacy and use.
Public schools have the potential to exacerbate or counter Truth Decay (the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life) by supporting students' development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to civic education. Researchers administered a survey to public-school social studies teachers about their approaches to civic education. This report, one in a series of six, provides technical information about the survey.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has claimed many victims and is threatening to claim another one—the United States Postal Service (USPS). This report examines how Americans view the USPS and explores its role as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected through the RAND American Life Panel as part of an ongoing analysis of the effects of COVID-19.
To support health care resource allocation decisionmaking during the COVID-19 crisis, the authors created the Core Guidance Checklist from a discussion process with bioethicists, health system leaders, clinicians, patient advocates, and representatives of affected communities. It is intended for use by decisionmakers within health systems, as well as state-level policymakers, to improve resource allocation policy development and implementation.
Stay-at-home orders save lives, but the extent to which they threaten livelihoods depends on the nature of one's work. This report examines how much the ability to work from home has mitigated the economic effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The data were collected through the RAND American Life Panel as part of an ongoing analysis of the effects of COVID-19.
U.S. air superiority is being challenged by competitors. The authors of this report demonstrate a prototype of a proof-of-concept artificial intelligence system to help develop and evaluate new concepts of operations for the air domain. The initial findings highlight both the potential of reinforcement learning to tackle complex, collaborative air mission planning problems, and some significant challenges facing this approach.
This report describes a survey fielded through the RAND American Life Panel to assess the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on individuals and households across a variety of topics.
In this Perspective, the authors discuss the need for more sustainable and scalable ways of incentivising pharmaceutical industry innovation in response to infectious disease threats to public health. The authors discuss financial incentives and non-financial considerations, and relate the insights to the COVID-19 crisis and to the context of preventing other emerging infectious disease threats from becoming crises in the future.
With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic causing economic dislocations worldwide, RAND researchers interviewed 21 small-business owners and found that the most common concerns focused on a need for assistance in covering fixed operating costs and on worker safety. Adjustments to existing policies were also discussed, such as clear rules for reopening businesses and coordinated reopening policies across neighboring jurisdictions.
Face recognition technologies (FRTs) have many practical security-related purposes, but advocacy groups and individuals have expressed apprehensions about their use. This report highlights the high-level privacy and bias implications of FRT systems. The authors propose a heuristic with two dimensions — consent status and comparison type — to help determine a proposed FRT's level of privacy and accuracy. They also identify privacy and bias concerns.
This report describes the Belt and Road Initiative's common criticisms, defining characteristics, and externalities, and the authors explore implications for policymakers.
The illicit antiquities market is fueled by a well-documented rise in looting at archaeological sites and a fear that the proceeds of such looting may be financing terrorism or rogue states. In this report, the authors compile evidence from numerous open sources to outline the major policy-relevant characteristics of that market and to propose the way forward for developing policies intended to disrupt illicit networks.
