Will McCants: ISIS-claimed attacks in Paris, Beirut, Egypt, and Brussels indicate the organization wants to take the fight to its enemies abroad. One reason might be that all is not well in ISIS-land. The nascent state in Syria and Iraq has lost around 25 percent of its territory and tens of thousands of fighters in the year since America and its allies began to their campaign to defeat it. While the state still endures for now, it's under tremendous pressure because of the costs of ceaseless war.

To explain the troubles ISIS faces at home, we have invited a group of scholars to comment on its governance over the past years and speculate on what they might face in the year ahead. First was Mara Revkin, who examined how opinions towards ISIS have changed since it captured Mosul more than a year ago. Then Aymenn al-Tamimi argued that internal documents show increasing challenges for the Islamic State. Next, Aaron Zelin weighed in with a historical perspective, analyzing the extent to which ISIS has lived up to its own standards of governance. And Kamran Bokhari argued that security—namely defending territory—is the foremost governance objective of ISIS in the short term. Quinn Mecham focused on the need to provide alternative, positive models of governance for the populations living under ISIS control, and most recently, Nelson Kasfir and Zachariah Mampilly compared ISIS’ governance choices with how other armed groups have governed civilian populations.

Next up is Hassan Hassan, a resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. He assesses ISIS’ model of governance before and after coalition airstrikes against the group began. Before the strikes, he argues, ISIS had a freer hand to implement its policies, and has used savagery and governance to both deter and incentivize communities under its control.

Hassan Hassan: Abu Sameh, a Syrian in his late twenties, joined the Syrian al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front as a fighter in early 2013. He fought for the group in Deir Ezzor and northeastern Syria until the Islamic State (ISIS) began to dominate there in the summer of 2014. That’s when he switched sides.

He was drawn to ISIS through one of his relatives, a commander of a small armed faction operating near the Iraqi border. With ISIS, battle-hardened Abu Sameh landed a job related to his undergraduate major for the first time since graduating college in 2009. He became an accountant working in the group’s oil industry.

As with many like Abu Sameh, ISIS benefited from local expertise to run its state-building enterprise in the areas it conquered in northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria in 2013 and 2014. It also re-opened institutions that ceased to operate after the collapse of provisional governments—former employees, for instance, had continued to receive salaries from Baghdad and Damascus, but they typically sat at home and enjoyed the kickbacks, without being made to work by armed groups in control of the areas. When ISIS took over, many of them were forced back to work.

Enforcement of strict rules helped ISIS establish a semblance of order, which appealed to local communities plagued by kidnapping, highway robbery, theft, and warlordism. After ISIS took control, crime disappeared overnight and people could travel unarmed from Aleppo to Mosul. Through savagery and governance, ISIS both deterred and incentivized communities under its control.

Through savagery and governance, ISIS both deterred and incentivized communities under its control.

Local perception

Assessments of ISIS’ model of governance should distinguish between the periods before and after coalition airstrikes. Priority should be given to the period that preceded the airstrikes—between June and November 2014 in most areas—when the group had a freer hand to implement its policies. Assessments must also consider how ISIS fared in comparison to the armed groups and governments which preceded it. In some cases, ISIS appeared to have gone even further than previous governments in extending its writ to rural areas of Iraq and Syria. 

In this context, local perception is key to the evaluation of ISIS’ performance. According to weekly or sometimes daily conversations I have had with residents in eastern Syria—where I am originally from—people living under ISIS rule equally blame airstrikes or government bombings for the worsening economic situation in their areas, not just ISIS. The desire to link ISIS’ inability to deliver services with the failure of its model is understandable, it allows one to undermine its appeal and wholly blame it for the deteriorating situation in ISIS-held areas. But properly understanding the way ISIS ruled during this specific period with an emphasis on local perceptions is vital not only for academic objectivity but also to fully grasp the unintended consequences of the current coalition campaign against ISIS.

Referring to the destruction of Ramadi after the expulsion of ISIS in December, Col. Steven H. Warren, a Pentagon spokesman in Iraq, told The New York Times: “One hundred percent of this is on ISIL [another acronym for ISIS] because no one would be dropping any bombs if ISIL hadn’t gone in there.” In reality, however, many in those areas see the causes of destruction with a little more nuance than “no ISIS, no bombs.” First, ISIS entered most of those towns with little confrontation with civilians; it was political grievances and the failure of other armed groups that partly enabled ISIS to occupy certain areas to begin with. Moreover, the air campaign targeted bridges and oil facilities, which made life harder for civilians and disrupted a wartime economy that preceded ISIS rule.

Beyond violence 

ISIS is a manager and not a distributor of resources. In the Syrian context, nationalist, Islamist, and jihadist groups have generally sought to win hearts and minds primarily through the free or cheap provision of basic resources. ISIS, however, opts for managing what it has under its control. Even as it charges the population for services, the model remains more effective than the ones in southern and northern Syria for a simple reason. Because ISIS seeks to function as a state, local communities obtain essential benefits in return: safety and security, effective courts, and unified rule. Elsewhere, like in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus or in Aleppo, provision of services is trumped by chaos, uncertainty, and ineffective courts, because local groups do not have exclusive or unchallenged control over territory.

Because ISIS seeks to function as a state, local communities obtain essential benefits in return: safety and security, effective courts, and unified rule.

Other forces that ruled in Syria prior to ISIS aimed to establish order based on consent. Even the Nusra Front, which was far more powerful and disciplined than other forces up until the rise of ISIS, retracted some of its decisions, seeking to avoid clashes with local families. The Nusra Front (and other Islamist groups as well) typically shied away from enforcing their rules to avoid alienating the population. In most court cases, for instance, whether a ruling would be enforced or not would hinge on whether the criminal or his family had voluntarily accepted the court’s judgment in the first place.

Conversely, under ISIS, courts have a high enforcement mechanism. This was true even when ISIS was a minor player operating from bases in rebel-controlled areas in early 2013. ISIS would encourage people to seek its help when they had a complaint about a person and would forcefully resolve the issue, even if that meant confrontation with powerful groups or individuals. This occurred numerous times ahead of ISIS’ rise to prominence in late 2013. This partly explains why many villagers either travelled outside their towns to fight for ISIS even after it was driven out of their areas in that period or accepted it when it returned later.

ISIS’ model was high-risk. The group was consistent and determined about enforcing its rules, and would not tolerate rivalry in its territory or recognize Sharia commissions other than its own. It demanded uniformity at any cost. One of the most claimed “advantages" of ISIS’ rule in its territories is that it “gets the job done.” Unlike the Free Syrian Army and other Islamist groups, ISIS would send a patrol to fetch someone if another person filed a complaint about him (these complaints typically involved financial fraud or unsettled commercial disputes). According to one resident who was involved in such a case, even if the complaint in question dated back to the years before the uprising, ISIS would settle the situation, provided that the complainant had proof.

ISIS...demanded uniformity at any cost.

“If you’re an FSA commander and you have a civilian relative, [FSA and other rebels] would accept mediation,” Hassan al-Salloum, a former rebel commander from Idlib, told me, referring to the time when ISIS was still a marginal player in 2013. “But with ISIS, if I complain about an FSA member, they go and bring him in for interrogation. They would not accept mediation. People then started to go to complain to ISIS, looking for help and asking them to intervene.”

Regulations and price controls are other areas in which ISIS’ governance proved successful. It banned fishermen from using dynamite and electricity to catch fish. It also prohibited residents from using the chaos of war to stake new land claims. This was especially true in the Syrian desert, where residents had attempted to build new homes or establish new businesses in public lands, much to the chagrin of their neighbors. ISIS also limited the profit margins on oil by-products, ice, flour, and other essential commodities. It also prohibited families from setting up refineries close to private residences, under the threat of confiscation, a policy that led some families to quit the oil business altogether, according to residents I interviewed.

A state—and more

In certain cases, ISIS governed areas more comprehensively than the governments of Baghdad and Damascus. Whether in delivery of services or management of people and resources under its control, ISIS makes it clear it is the only ruler in town, and once residents recognize that, they are often allowed to help govern their areas. There have been instances, according to tribal sources from Iraq and Syria I spoke to, of “deputization” whereby ISIS re-armed specific tribesmen to control their own area, though that process remained extremely limited.

Before, other groups and previous governments would use tribal leaders as intermediaries between them and local communities. ISIS, by contrast, acts as an intermediary between different tribes and even within the same tribe to resolve disputes, some of which date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, it has systematically disarmed local communities that came under its rule in a way that previous governments failed to do over decades. 

The group is the only one in the two countries that employs an extensive network of staff exclusively dedicated to dealing with tribal affairs. The man in charge of tribal affairs is a Saudi national by the name of Daygham Abu Abdullah, locally known to be well-versed in tribal lineage and dynamics. He oversees a bureau that receives tribal delegations from across the self-styled caliphate that desire to resolve conflict or appeal for clemency. After ISIS asserts control over an area, tribal outreach helps it engage with local tribes and act as a social arbiter. Even though the organization carried out mass atrocities against certain tribes, the group often has other members of those same tribes fighting in its ranks, including members of Albu Nimr and Albu Fahad in Iraq, and Al Shaytat in Syria. ISIS employs a seemingly contradictory strategy of divide-and-rule. It first attempts infiltrate an area, and follows up with an outreach policy after consolidating control. The office that handles amending tribal disputes is known as Public Relations Bureau.

Whereas Islamic inheritance laws stipulate that women are to receive half of that received by a male sibling, tribal society often deprives women even of that half share. Unlike governments, which rarely enforce Sharia-based inheritance laws, ISIS sent out instructions to local communities to provide women with their due share and some women who complained to ISIS judges would receive their shares retroactively from their brothers.

These measures suggest that the group, in some instances, is more vigorous and micro-managerial than previous governments that ruled these predominantly rural areas in Iraq and Syria.

These measures suggest that the group, in some instances, is more vigorous and micro-managerial than previous governments that ruled these predominantly rural areas in Iraq and Syria. Lawlessness, kidnappings, arbitrary killings, and highway robbery are greater sources of grievance for people living outside regime areas than poor services, something that ISIS has dealt with by providing security based on brutal justice and policing. The semblance of order established by ISIS remains a strong advantage for the group, despite its diminished ability in other aspects of governance, and forces that will take over from ISIS will be judged accordingly.

Conclusion

There is little doubt that the group has lost the initial appeal it had when it conquered large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014. The U.S.-led air campaign has blunted the group’s ability to generate income from oil and war spoils that usually come from rapid expansion. It has also reduced the group’s capacity to provide sufficient services for communities under its rule. The air campaign has also resulted in an interesting trend: it has strengthened the role of ISIS’ security and intelligence core in the towns, villages and cities the group controls, a development that has led to mounting complaints about their harsh and crude behavior.

ISIS associates, too, complain of the group’s security apparatus to the extent that it has become common to hear of clerics explaining to ISIS members that the state that Prophet Mohammed founded also included munafiqun, or “hypocrites,” and that this should not be a reason to abandon it, according to interviews I conducted, including with members. (Connoting someone who only feigns belief in public, the term munafiqun is a heavy accusation to levy at a fellow Muslims, and such people are condemned in the Quran.)

[T]argeting the economy of ISIS-controlled areas can make matters worse.

But all that will not translate into a rebellion against ISIS. Additionally—and more importantly—targeting the economy of ISIS-controlled areas can make matters worse. In some cases, airstrikes led families to send their children to join ISIS as the only way to generate income. Iraqi officials have warned that choking off ISIS’s economic routes might result in “collateral damage.” While they may see this as necessary evil, it also runs the risk of helping ISIS tighten its grip by driving residents closer to it as the only employer or provider in town.

The unintended consequences of the air campaign are a serious concern, especially if ISIS is to be defeated strategically. This is something I have discussed with everyone involved, from civilians to ISIS members to Western officials involved in the anti-ISIS campaign. Residents often complain that they are suffering collective punishment by inconsiderate foreign forces. ISIS, meanwhile, tells the communities under its rule that it would have brought more prosperity to their towns had it not been for the airstrikes. A high-level American official involved in the campaign acknowledged to me that officials were aware of the possibility of unintended consequences but insisted that airstrikes targeting the economy in eastern Syria and western Iraq will only intensify. 

Should the United States and NATO consider deploying their current airpower in Afghanistan more assertively? In a May 21 Wall Street Journal op-ed, that’s what retired general and former Afghanistan commander David Petraeus and I contend. Under current rules of engagement, their airpower is used only against al-Qaida or ISIS targets, or when NATO troops are in imminent danger—or, in extremis, when there is a strategic threat to the mission from Taliban attack. As a result of this and other factors, the employment of ordnance by U.S. airpower in Afghanistan is far less than in Iraq and Syria—perhaps by a factor of 20 less, in fact.

But the Taliban can and should be targeted more comprehensively in Afghanistan. An American drone strike over the weekend in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansour. That’s welcome news, since the organization he led is the group that allowed al-Qaida to use Afghan bases to prepare the 9/11 attacks; they continue to kill many innocent Afghan and NATO troops, including with horrific attacks in Kabul and elsewhere; they continue to favor draconian measures if they are ever able to regain power in Afghanistan in the future; and they remain a serious threat to the Afghan government and people. The fight against them is far from lost, but the Afghan military's airpower remains underdeveloped and in need of considerable help from the United States and NATO for at least a couple more years.

When she gives her speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton will of course be at a crucial point in her campaign for the presidency. Her fellow Democrats—including her running mate Senator Tim Kaine, as well as Michael Bloomberg—have roundly criticized her Republican opponent Donald Trump this week. Vice President Biden and President Obama usefully offered a counterpoint to the dark worldview we saw from Mr. Trump last week in Cleveland. And former President Bill Clinton, as well as first lady Michelle Obama, told us about Clinton’s longstanding dedication to women and children, the less fortunate, and the nation as a whole. As a parent of a child on the autism spectrum, I have seen and deeply appreciated this side of Clinton myself.

Now, it is up to Clinton to sketch out a positive vision for her own presidency. In so doing, she must strike a balanced tone—acknowledging and tapping the energy (and at times anger) of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and their wing of the Democratic Party—while also reaching out to independents and moderate Republicans to whom she should appeal (given her past and her politics, and most of all, her opponent), but who at present tend not to think favorably of her.

Against this complex backdrop, I would offer only a few suggestions for her upcoming speech:

• On the state of the world, we need a nuanced view. Yes, there are big problems. Yes, ISIS is a greater threat than President Obama has sometimes acknowledged. On balance, however, things are troubled but not bad. Democracy has taken a hit in recent years, and the world’s economy has struggled in many ways for a decade, and Russia and China have caused considerable problems of late. But taking a larger perspective, the international order still has many strong points. Our alliances are strong. Despite recent setbacks, a higher percentage of people around the world live in democratic countries and above the poverty line this century than ever before. Child mortality globally is way down. U.S.-India relations are better than ever, as are America’s ties to other key rising powers like Indonesia. The U.S. military is indeed very strong (as retired General David Petraeus and I write in a forthcoming Foreign Affairs article), even if there is much to do to make it even better.


• We do need to do better in fighting ISIS. Ideas on how to attack it in Syria and Libya, among other places, will be key, even if details will necessarily need to await 2017. And while I think President Obama has done better in dealing with Russia and China than commonly understood, Obama has not explained his strategies for handling these powers very well to the United States. Clinton can help.


• The fading middle-class economic dream in the United States remains the central issue of this campaign. It explains the rise of Sanders and Trump better than any other single factor or phenomenon. Clinton’s views on economics are good but they come across as a bit piecemeal, borrowing from Sanders on a few key points like the minimum wage and trade but somewhat lacking her own key stamp. Above all other issues, I hope she concentrates on this tonight.


• We have not heard much about Benghazi or about Clinton’s email problems this week. To be sure, many Republicans have inflated these issues beyond all reason. But Clinton should still apologize for her mistakes to the country, without overdoing it. As best I can tell, she put no true national secrets or American personnel at risk in her emails, and while Benghazi was a tragedy that might have been preventable, no one can be perfect in times like these. We don’t typically excoriate our military commanders for mistakes that tragically may cost American lives in a given tactical operation, recognizing that such setbacks happen in war. That is not to excuse the lack of proper attention to Libya and Benghazi by the U.S. government back in 2011 and 2012, only to put it in perspective.


• It would be good to hear some nice words about Republicans too, in an effort to reach across the aisle and defuse some of the anger in American politics today. I don’t mean just to compliment Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, but also to note the importance of people like Pete Domenici and Warren Rudman in fiscal policy and deficit reduction (and more recently, John Boehner and Paul Ryan); George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole in the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Republican Congress of the 1990s in welfare reform; George H.W. Bush again as well as people like Christie Todd Whitman in environmental policy; George W. Bush on PEPFAR/AIDS and also on stressing inclusivity while avoiding anti-Muslim rhetoric after the 9/11 attacks; and good GOP governors or former governors like Mitch Daniels, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush in fostering economic growth as well as education reform across much of the country. To Democrats angry with the current Republican presidential ticket, as well as much of the current congressional leadership, this may seem like bending over backwards to appease the opposition. But in fact, the above folks are not the opposition that Clinton needs to defeat now; they are responsible, constructive, patriotic members of the other main political party in the United States. They are not the enemy, and by reaching out to them, Clinton can improve her odds of beating the person who is now very much the adversary—not only of the Democratic ticket, but of much of this country’s finest bipartisan traditions and accomplishments.

I’ll be rooting for all the above (and also hoping to get to bed before midnight). Please bring it on, Hillary!

To achieve the desired outcomes of the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the global targets from the Paris COP21 Climate Summit by 2030, governments will have to find ways to meet the top-down objectives with bottom-up approaches. A systematic focus on scaling up successful development interventions could serve to bridge this gap, or what’s been called the “missing middle.” However, the question remains how to actually address the challenge of scaling up.

When Arna Hartmann, adjunct professor of international development, and I first looked at the scaling up agenda in development work in the mid-2000s, we concluded that development agencies were insufficiently focused on supporting the scaling up of successful development interventions. The pervasive focus on one-off projects all too often resulted in what I’ve come to refer to as “pilots to nowhere.” As a first step to fix this, we recommended that each aid organization carry out a review to be sure to focus effectively on scaling up. 

The institutional dimension is critical, given their role in developing and implementing scaling up pathways. Of course, individuals serve as champions, designers, and implementers, but experience illustrates that if individuals lack a strong link to a supportive institution, scaling up is most likely to be short-lived and unsustainable. “Institutions” include many different types of organizations, such as government ministries and departments, private firms and social enterprises, civil society organizations, and both public and private external donors and financiers.

The Brookings book “Getting to Scale: How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People” explores the opportunities and challenges that such organizations face, on their own or, better yet, partnering with each other, in scaling up the development impact of their successful interventions.

Over the past decade I have worked with 10 foreign aid institutions—multilateral and bilateral agencies, as well as big global non-governmental organizations—helping them to focus systematically on scaling up operational work and developing approaches to do so. There are common lessons that apply across the board to these agencies, with one salutary example being the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which has tackled the scaling up agenda systematically and persistently.

Following are eight takeaway lessons I gleaned from my work with IFAD:

1. Look into the “black box” of institutions. It is not enough to decide that an institution should focus on and support scaling up of successful development interventions. You actually need to look at how institutions function in terms of their mission statement and corporate strategy, their policies and processes, their operational instruments, their budgets, management and staff incentives, and their monitoring and evaluation practices. Check out the Brookings working paper that summarizes the results of a scaling up review of the IFAD.
2. Scaling needs to be pursued institution-wide. Tasking one unit in an organization with innovation and scaling up, or creating special outside entities (like the Global Innovation Fund set up jointly by a number of donor agencies) is a good first step. But ultimately, a comprehensive approach must be mainstreamed so that all operational activities are geared toward scaling up.
3. Scaling up must be championed from the top. The governing boards and leadership of the institutions need to commit to scaling up and persistently stay on message, since, like any fundamental institutional change, effectively scaling up takes time, perhaps a decade or more as with IFAD.
4. The scaling up process must be grown within the institution. External analysis and advice from consultants can play an important role in institutional reviews. But for lasting institutional change, the leadership must come from within and involve broad participation from managers and staff in developing operational policies and processes that are tailored to an institution’s specific culture, tasks, and organizational structure.
5. A well-articulated operational approach for scaling up needs to be put in place. For more on this, take a look at a recent paper by Larry Cooley and I that reviews two helpful operational approaches, which are also covered in Cooley’s blog. For the education sector, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings just published its report “Millions Learning,” which provides a useful scaling up approach specifically tailored to the education sector.
6. Operational staffs need to receive practical guidance and training. It is not enough to tell staff that they have to focus on scaling up and then give them a general framework. They also need practical guidance and training, ideally tailored to the specific business lines they are engaged in. IFAD, for example, developed overall operational guidelines for scaling up, as well as guidance notes for specific area of engagement, including livestock development, agricultural value chains, land tenure security, etc.  This guidance and training ideally should also be extended to consultants working with the agency on project preparation, implementation, and evaluation, as well as to the agency’s local counterpart organizations.
7. New approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) have to be crafted. Typically the M&E for development projects is backward looking and focused on accountability, narrow issues of implementation, and short-term results. Scaling up requires continuous learning, structured experimentation, and innovation based on evidence, including whether the enabling conditions for scaling up are being established. And it is important to monitor and evaluate the institutional mainstreaming process of scaling up to ensure that it is effectively pursued. I’d recommend looking at how the German Agency for International Development (GIZ) carried out a corporate-wide evaluation of its scaling up experience.
8. Scaling up helps aid organizations mobilize financial resources. Scaling up leverages limited institutional resources in two ways: First, an organization can multiply the impact of its own financial capacity by linking up with public and private agencies and building multi-stakeholder coalitions in support of scaling up. Second, when an organization demonstrates that it is pursuing not only one-off results but also scaled up impact, funders or shareholders of the organization tend to be more motivated to support the organization. This certainly was one of the drivers of IFAD’s successful financial replenishment consultation rounds over the last decade.

By adopting these lessons, development organizations can actually begin to scale up to the level necessary to bridge the missing middle. The key will be to assure that a focus on scaling up is not the exception but instead becomes ingrained in the institutional DNA. Simply put, in designing and implementing development programs and projects, the question needs to be answered, “What’s next, if this intervention works?”

I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.

A curriculum controversy is roiling schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.  In the past few months, parents in the San Mateo-Foster City School District, located just south of San Francisco International Airport, voiced concerns over changes to the middle school math program. The changes were brought about by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  Under previous policies, most eighth graders in the district took algebra I.  Some very sharp math students, who had already completed algebra I in seventh grade, took geometry in eighth grade. The new CCSS-aligned math program will reduce eighth grade enrollments in algebra I and eliminate geometry altogether as a middle school course. 

A little background information will clarify the controversy.  Eighth grade mathematics may be the single grade-subject combination most profoundly affected by the CCSS.  In California, the push for most students to complete algebra I by the end of eighth grade has been a centerpiece of state policy, as it has been in several states influenced by the “Algebra for All” movement that began in the 1990s.  Nationwide, in 1990, about 16 percent of all eighth graders reported that they were taking an algebra or geometry course.  In 2013, the number was three times larger, and nearly half of all eighth graders (48 percent) were taking algebra or geometry.^[i]  When that percentage goes down, as it is sure to under the CCSS, what happens to high achieving math students?

The parents who are expressing the most concern have kids who excel at math.  One parent in San Mateo-Foster City told The San Mateo Daily Journal, “This is really holding the advanced kids back.”^[ii] The CCSS math standards recommend a single math course for seventh grade, integrating several math topics, followed by a similarly integrated math course in eighth grade.  Algebra I won’t be offered until ninth grade.  The San Mateo-Foster City School District decided to adopt a “three years into two” accelerated option.  This strategy is suggested on the Common Core website as an option that districts may consider for advanced students.  It combines the curriculum from grades seven through nine (including algebra I) into a two year offering that students can take in seventh and eighth grades.^[iii]  The district will also provide—at one school site—a sequence beginning in sixth grade that compacts four years of math into three.  Both accelerated options culminate in the completion of algebra I in eighth grade.

The San Mateo-Foster City School District is home to many well-educated, high-powered professionals who work in Silicon Valley.  They are unrelentingly liberal in their politics.  Equity is a value they hold dear.^[iv]  They also know that completing at least one high school math course in middle school is essential for students who wish to take AP Calculus in their senior year of high school.  As CCSS is implemented across the nation, administrators in districts with demographic profiles similar to San Mateo-Foster City will face parents of mathematically precocious kids asking whether the “common” in Common Core mandates that all students take the same math course.  Many of those districts will respond to their constituents and provide accelerated pathways (“pathway” is CCSS jargon for course sequence). 

But other districts will not.  Data show that urban schools, schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students, and schools located in impoverished neighborhoods are reluctant to differentiate curriculum.  It is unlikely that gifted math students in those districts will be offered an accelerated option under CCSS.  The reason why can be summed up in one word: tracking.

Tracking in eighth grade math means providing different courses to students based on their prior math achievement.  The term “tracking” has been stigmatized, coming under fire for being inequitable.  Historically, where tracking existed, black, Hispanic, and disadvantaged students were often underrepresented in high-level math classes; white, Asian, and middle-class students were often over-represented.  An anti-tracking movement gained a full head of steam in the 1980s.  Tracking reformers knew that persuading high schools to de-track was hopeless.  Consequently, tracking’s critics focused reform efforts on middle schools, urging that they group students heterogeneously with all students studying a common curriculum.  That approach took hold in urban districts, but not in the suburbs.

Now the Common Core and de-tracking are linked.  Providing an accelerated math track for high achievers has become a flashpoint throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.  An October 2014 article in The San Jose Mercury News named Palo Alto, Saratoga, Cupertino, Pleasanton, and Los Gatos as districts that have announced, in response to parent pressure, that they are maintaining an accelerated math track in middle schools.  These are high-achieving, suburban districts.  Los Gatos parents took to the internet with a petition drive when a rumor spread that advanced courses would end.  Ed Source reports that 900 parents signed a petition opposing the move and board meetings on the issue were packed with opponents. The accelerated track was kept.  Piedmont established a single track for everyone, but allowed parents to apply for an accelerated option.  About twenty five percent did so.  The Mercury News story underscores the demographic pattern that is unfolding and asks whether CCSS “could cement a two-tier system, with accelerated math being the norm in wealthy areas and the exception elsewhere.”

What is CCSS’s real role here?  Does the Common Core take an explicit stand on tracking?  Not really.  But de-tracking advocates can interpret the “common” in Common Core as license to eliminate accelerated tracks for high achievers.  As a noted CCSS supporter (and tracking critic), William H. Schmidt, has stated, “By insisting on common content for all students at each grade level and in every community, the Common Core mathematics standards are in direct conflict with the concept of tracking.”^[v]  Thus, tracking joins other controversial curricular ideas—e.g., integrated math courses instead of courses organized by content domains such as algebra and geometry; an emphasis on “deep,” conceptual mathematics over learning procedures and basic skills—as “dog whistles” embedded in the Common Core.  Controversial positions aren’t explicitly stated, but they can be heard by those who want to hear them.    

CCSS doesn’t have to take an outright stand on these debates in order to have an effect on policy.  For the practical questions that local grouping policies resolve—who takes what courses and when do they take them—CCSS wipes the slate clean.  There are plenty of people ready to write on that blank slate, particularly administrators frustrated by unsuccessful efforts to de-track in the past

Suburban parents are mobilized in defense of accelerated options for advantaged students.  What about kids who are outstanding math students but also happen to be poor, black, or Hispanic?  What happens to them, especially if they attend schools in which the top institutional concern is meeting the needs of kids functioning several years below grade level?  I presented a paper on this question at a December 2014 conference held by the Fordham Institute in Washington, DC.  I proposed a pilot program of “tracking for equity.”  By that term, I mean offering black, Hispanic, and poor high achievers the same opportunity that the suburban districts in the Bay Area are offering.  High achieving middle school students in poor neighborhoods would be able to take three years of math in two years and proceed on a path toward AP Calculus as high school seniors.

It is true that tracking must be done carefully.  Tracking can be conducted unfairly and has been used unjustly in the past.  One of the worst consequences of earlier forms of tracking was that low-skilled students were tracked into dead end courses that did nothing to help them academically.  These low-skilled students were disproportionately from disadvantaged communities or communities of color.  That’s not a danger in the proposal I am making.  The default curriculum, the one every student would take if not taking the advanced track, would be the Common Core.  If that’s a dead end for low achievers, Common Core supporters need to start being more honest in how they are selling the CCSS.  Moreover, to ensure that the policy gets to the students for whom it is intended, I have proposed running the pilot program in schools predominantly populated by poor, black, or Hispanic students.  The pilot won’t promote segregation within schools because the sad reality is that participating schools are already segregated.

Since I presented the paper, I have privately received negative feedback from both Algebra for All advocates and Common Core supporters.  That’s disappointing.  Because of their animus toward tracking, some critics seem to support a severe policy swing from Algebra for All, which was pursued for equity, to Algebra for None, which will be pursued for equity.  It’s as if either everyone or no one should be allowed to take algebra in eighth grade.  The argument is that allowing only some eighth graders to enroll in algebra is elitist, even if the students in question are poor students of color who are prepared for the course and likely to benefit from taking it.

The controversy raises crucial questions about the Common Core.  What’s common in the common core?  Is it the curriculum?  And does that mean the same curriculum for all?  Will CCSS serve as a curricular floor, ensuring all students are exposed to a common body of knowledge and skills?  Or will it serve as a ceiling, limiting the progress of bright students so that their achievement looks more like that of their peers?  These questions will be answered differently in different communities, and as they are, the inequities that Common Core supporters think they’re addressing may surface again in a profound form.   

Editors' Note: Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Feinberg reports from Havana on President Obama's historic visit to the island. 

Havana is abuzz at the sheer weight of the president of the United States arriving in Cuba. In the hours before President Obama’s arrival, astonished Cubans told tales of planeloads of black limousines and massive Suburbans, of heavily armed security personnel, of sunglass-sporting secret service officers arriving at the airport and making their way through the city.

Cubans have anticipated the arrival of the Obama family with considerable joyfulness, but the festive mood is colored by a certain reticence, a deep-seated fear of, once again, being overwhelmed by the Colossus from the North. 

The government has bargained hard with Obama’s advance team to hem him in, to limit his direct contact with the Cuban people. There will be no large outdoor speech—rather on Tuesday morning Obama will address a hand-picked audience in the newly renovated Grand Theatre with its limited seating capacity—although the Cuban government agreed to live television coverage. The U.S. president will also meet with local entrepreneurs, but in a constricted venue, and ditto for his meeting with independent civil society and political dissidents.

On Tuesday afternoon the president will be the guest of honor at an exhibition game between the visiting Tampa Bay Rays (their chance selection was by lottery) and the Cuban national team. The White House has hinted that he will throw out the first ball, but this could not be confirmed. On a prior occasion, Jimmy Carter did indeed throw out the first ball, but that was during a visit long after his presidency.

Putting the lanky, athletic Obama on the mound would run a certain risk for the Cubans. Suppose the excited crowd begins to cheer, “Obama, Obama…” Even more dangerous, imagine if the exuberant Cubans follow with, “USA, USA, USA…”

Back home, critics of the Obama administration say he’s made too many concessions to the Cuban government without reciprocity. Cuba is no closer to a liberal democracy, they argue, than it was on December 17, 2014, when Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced their decision to normalize diplomatic relations. But these skeptics miss this vital point: By befriending the president of the United States, the president of Cuba and first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) has exploded his regime’s long-standing national security paradigm organized around the imminent danger posed by a hostile empire. The rationale for the state-of-siege mentality, the explanation for the poor economic performance, no longer resonates. The ruling political bureau of the PCC stands exposed before the Cuban people.

Hence, the government is working hard to persuade the people that it has not forsaken its nationalist credentials: the PCC’s daily newspaper, Gramna, ran a fierce editorial warning for Obama not to try to step on their little island, not to intervene in its internal affairs; rather, he must arrive as a classic Greek suitor bearing gifts. But no Trojan horses, the Cubans are too wary to be fooled so easily.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, passing through Havana this week, pointedly remarked: “The hearts of the Cuban and Venezuelan people are warm and true. Not like others who come with smiles but hide a clenched fist.”

In truth, most Cubans very much want the trip to succeed. They want more tourists, more remittances from Cuban-Americans living in Florida and New Jersey. They would welcome more trade, more access to famous U.S. consumer brands. Many would even welcome U.S. investment—with the promise of good jobs and better wages. All would love to be able to travel freely between their island and the outside world, especially to the nearby United States. In short, they yearn for normality.

And savvy Cubans sense the link between the more relaxed diplomatic atmosphere and the gradual opening of political space so evident on the island. While not yet living in a fully open society, Cubans are now more willing to express their views openly, to foreigners and among themselves. Some are even forming proto-civil society groupings, to advance gender equality, environmental stewardship, religious freedom, and human rights.

Bathing in these new liberties, Cubans worry that something, anything, could go wrong during the visit. In such a highly scrutinized setting, one misstep, one awkward phrase, one misinterpretation of Cuban history, would give ammunition to hardliners to set the clock back and to restore the old national security paradigm.

Raúl Castro has pinned his own legacy too closely to the young U.S. president to allow any stumbles during this historic visit, to stand idly by while the visit was twisted by his internal opponents. And Raúl and his confidants retain control over the mass media in Cuba, and the PCC will loyally pass along the party line, as set by the political bureau and echoed all along the chain of command, down to the district and village level.

So the visit will be declared a success. Most likely, it will truly be a marvelous moment, because Obama is just the right person to stretch out the U.S. hand to the long-aggrieved Cuban people. The very traits for which Obama is so often criticized at home will serve him well in Cuba: his humility, his respectfulness, his sense of irony—these are just what Cubans have been harking for from the United States for so many decades.

The Cubans will also love Michelle Obama and the two teenage Obama daughters, especially if Sasha and Malia are freed to wander forth and meet their contemporaries at one of Havana’s clubs where young people gather—the Cuban media and public will bask in the respect being paid to Cuban music and dance, to “Cubanismo.”

Obama and Castro share some goals, and conflict on others. Both wish for a peaceful transition to a more prosperous Cuba, more open to the world and to global commerce. But they differ on the endgame: Obama would like to see a more liberal, pluralistic polity, while Castro presumably wants to see his Communist Party retain its grip on power. But that chess match will be waged later, by their successors. 

For Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, today their interests are convergent. Hence, we can predict that, most likely, the visit will be a great success, a historic legacy for which both statesmen will be justly proud.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusolu’s decision earlier this month to decline to participate in the Munich Security Conference due to Israeli ministerial participation marks a new low in the troubled Turkish-Israeli relationship.

And yet, the latest statistics released this week by the Israeli government document an overall volume of $5.44 billion dollars in Turkish-Israeli trade during 2014. This marks an all-time high point in Turkish-Israeli economic relations, up 11.5 percent from 2013, including $2.75 billion in Israeli exports to Turkey (a 10 percent year-to-year increase) and $2.68 billion in Turkish imports to Israel (13 percent higher than 2013).

This pattern of an almost non-existent political dialogue at the senior levels accompanied by robust bilateral trade has characterized the Turkish-Israeli relationship since 2011. Short of unexpected dramatic changes, the relations between the two former allies will likely continue in this pattern for the foreseeable future. 

Almost two years after Israel’s official apology to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident (which I wrote about in depth here), the two countries continue to move in different directions, despite sharing similar strategic concerns on a range of regional issues – the civil war in Syria, instability in Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program.

The main bone of contention between the AKP-led Turkish government and the Likud-led government in Israel remains the Palestinian issue. Turkey continues to speak out against Israeli occupation and settlement activity in the West Bank, as well as on Israeli human rights violations towards the Palestinian population. In addition, Turkey remains one of the main (very few) patrons of Hamas, providing the group with political and economic support and allowing the organization to maintain representation in Istanbul. Israel viewed with disdain Turkish attempts, together with Qatar, to facilitate a ceasefire with Hamas during the summer 2014 war. Anti-Turkish sentiments in Israeli public opinion skyrocketed in response to President Erdogan’s allegations that Israeli policies on Gaza are genocidal. 

Amidst rising tensions in the relationship, President Erdogan publicly vowed after his August 2014 election that as long as he’s in power, Turkey’s approach to Israel will not change. As a result, there are no serious expectations that any senior-level political dialogue will resume, and mutual representation is likely to remain at a junior diplomatic level (after ambassadors were withdrawn from Tel Aviv and Ankara in 2011).

The interesting aspect of the relationship continues to be the booming trade between the two countries, which despite political tensions continues to grow at a rapid pace. Clearly there is an interest on both sides to insulate the economic sphere from the political sphere. Robust trade serves both countries’ economic interests and during a very unstable period keeps the relationship afloat. Nevertheless, an Israeli – Turkish natural gas deal which was considered in the past as a likely scenario and possibly a regional and bilateral “game changer” seems at present to be “off the table.” Potential energy cooperation between Turkey and Israel around the Eastern Mediterranean natural gas discoveries may be possible only in the context of political rapprochement.