France has been struck by an unprecedented three terror attacks in the last 18 months. In what’s called Operation Sentinelle, 13,000 French military personnel now patrol streets and protect key sites across the country, assisting police and other security agencies. “The fact that the armed forces are visible,” said French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at a Brookings event on July 20, “help to reassure the French people that they are safe both at home and abroad.”

Do the challenges facing France today mean that it should reduce its engagement overseas, focusing instead on security at home? Le Drian doesn’t think so, and I agree. In a new book titled "Who is the Enemy?," he particularly emphasizes the multifaceted ISIS threat. As he said at Brookings: 

"Every war [has] two enemies…[Today’s] war [with ISIS] also sets in place two concepts of the “enemy” that are radically different: From a strategic point of view, we are dealing with a proto-state; at the heart of this entity, there is a terrorist army." 

It only further complicates matters, of course, that France faces ISIS threats on several fronts: in Syria and Iraq, on the one hand, and also on its own territory. This, Le Drian stressed, means “we must seek coherence in our military action.” It also helps explain why France remains one of the most active countries in the fight against the so-called Islamic State, as well as other extremist groups in the Middle East and in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2013 and 2014, France intervened in Mali in order to prevent jihadi groups from taking over the country. The French military also has a presence in Djibouti, Lebanon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Senegal, as well as in the Pacific (in French Polynesia and New Caledonia)—not to mention Syria, where France uses the Mediterranean Sea-based Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to strike ISIS targets. 

France is not a warmongering country—rather, it is responding to the fact that overseas threats come to it. Although it remains unclear to what extent the Nice attacker had connections with foreign terrorist networks, it has been established that the November 2015 Paris attacks were planned and orchestrated from Syria. This, among other considerations, has prompted France to engage further in Iraq and Syria. The rationale, as Minister Le Drian explained, is: 

“[T]rading our peace by reducing our military involvement doesn’t make sense. The more we let ISIS consolidate its presence on the Middle East, the more it will gather resources, attract fighters, and plan more attacks against us.” 

Team player

French policy isn’t just about ensuring its own security—rather, its many contributions are integrated within global efforts, including U.S.-led ones. As Le Drian said at Brookings: “I am convinced that the French-American relationship is stronger and better than ever.” France is a prominent participant of the 66-member international coalition against ISIS, and in that capacity participated in the first joint meeting of that group’s foreign and defense ministers in Washington this month. 

France remains a key member of the joint military operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, which has damaged or destroyed over 26,0000 ISIS-related targets since August 2014. The Charles de Gaulle carrier—with 26 aircrafts on board—has been an essential part of that coalition mission. Following specific instructions from U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and his counterpart in Paris, Minister Le Drian, French and U.S. intelligence agencies cooperate closely in intelligence-sharing. And just last week, President François Hollande announced that France will soon be supplying artillery to Iraq to support its fight against ISIS. Beyond the Iraq-Syria theater, France is cooperating with the United States and other partners in Libya, another country that is both a victim and source of extremist threats. 

The French Defense Ministry’s efforts to double-down on protecting French citizens within France, therefore, has not reduced its overseas role. Particularly now that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, France’s military role has never been so important. France—along with Germany, which recently suggested it would raise its defense spending significantly—should continue to play a leading role as one the top defense actors in the West. 

BPEA co-editor Justin Wolfers describes new research that found: people dropped out of the labor force before the recession started; there are better ways to forecast unemployment; homebuyer expectations helped inflate the bubble; the U.S. is not actually as politically polarized as most people think; central banks’ recent experiments with capital controls haven’t delivered results; and the U.S. is making inroads fighting poverty.

Video

• U.S. Not Actually as Politically Polarized as Most Think
• Poverty Has Fallen Much More than Previously Thought
• New Unemployment Model Can Outperform Forecasters
• Perceptions Matter: Homebuyer Expectations Helped Inflate Bubble
• Central Banks’ Recent Experiments with Capital Controls Haven’t Delivered Results

There are lots of ways for Syria to go wrong for Russia. Analysts have tended to focus on Moscow’s military shortcomings in that theater, wondering if Syria will become Russia’s Vietnam. They’ve also pointed to Russia’s deep economic troubles—exacerbated, of course, by very low oil prices—which call into question its ability to pay for the military campaign over time.

One of the understudied aspects of Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict is the ramifications it could have for the Russian government’s relations with Muslims back at home. Moscow is now home to the largest Muslim community of any city in Europe (with between 1.5 and 2 million Muslims out of a population of around 13 million, although illegal immigration has distorted many of the figures). Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders have consciously avoided choosing sides in the Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East—recognizing that doing so could provoke a backlash among Russian Muslims.

The rise of an extremist, Salafi- or Wahhabi-inspired, religious state in Syria—an Islamic caliphate established either by the Islamic State or by any religiously-based extremist group in the region—could pose a significant problem for Russia. That’s both because of how it’s likely to behave toward other states in the region (including key Russian partners like Israel, Egypt, and Iran) and because of what it could inspire in Mother Russia, where efforts by militant groups to create their own “caliphate” or “emirate” in the North Caucasus have created headaches for Moscow since the early 2000s. 

Islam and Russia go way back

Russia is a Muslim state. Islam is arguably older than Christianity in traditional Russian territory––with Muslim communities first appearing in southeastern Russia in the 8th century. It is firmly established as the dominant religion among the Tatars of the Volga region and the diverse peoples of the Russian North Caucasus. These indigenous Sunni Muslims have their own unique heritage, history, and religious experience. The Tatars launched a reformist movement in the 19th century that later morphed into ideas of “Euro-Islam,” a progressive credo that could coexist, and even compete, with Russian Orthodoxy and other Christian denominations. Sufi movements, rooted in private forms of belief and practice, similarly prevailed in the Russian North Caucasus after the late 18th century. 

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when Central Asia and the South Caucasus were also part of the state, the USSR’s demography was in flux. The “ethnic” Muslim share of the population was rising as a result of high birthrates in Central Asia, while the Slavic, primarily Orthodox, populations of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were declining from high mortality and low birthrates. Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia’s nominal Muslim population has swelled with labor migration from Central Asia and Azerbaijan, which has brought more Shiite Muslims into the mix, in the case of Azeri immigrants. As in other countries, Russia has also had its share of converts to Islam as the population rediscovered religion in the 1990s and 2000s after the enforced atheism of the Soviet period came to an end.

The foreign fighter problem

The Kremlin cannot afford the rise of any group that fuses religion and politics, and has outside allegiances that might encourage opposition to the Russian state among its Muslim populations. The religious wars in the Middle East are not a side show for Russia. Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria from Russia, as well as from Central Asia and the South Caucasus, all attracted by the extreme messages of ISIS and other groups.

Extremist groups have been active in Russia since the Chechen wars of the 1990s and 2000s. A recent Reuters report reveals how Russia allowed—and even encouraged—militants and radicals from the North Caucasus to go and fight in Syria in 2013, in an effort to divert them away from potential domestic terrorist attacks ahead of the February 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The Kremlin now worries that these and other fighters will return from Syria and further radicalize and inflame the situation in the North Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia. Putin intends to eliminate the fighters, in place, before they have an opportunity to come back home.

Putin also knows a thing or two about extremists from his time in the KGB, as well as his reading of Russian history. As a result, he does little to distinguish among them. For Putin, an extremist is an extremist—no matter what name he or she adopts. Indeed, Russian revolutionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries wrote the playbook for fusing ideology with terror and brutality; and Putin has recently become very critical of that revolutionary approach––moving even to criticize Soviet founder and Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin for destroying the Russian state and empire one hundred years ago in the Russian Revolution of 1917. For Putin, anyone whose views and ideas can become the base for violence in opposition to the legal, legitimate state (and its leader) is an extremist who must be countered. Syria is a crucial front in holding the line.

The long haul

With this in mind, we can be sure that Putin sees Russia in for the long haul in Syria. Recent signs that Russia may be creating a new army base in Palmyra to complement its bases in Latakia and Tarsus, underscore this point. Having watched the United States returning to its old battlegrounds in both Afghanistan and Iraq to head off new extremist threats, Putin will want to prepare contingencies and keep his options open. 

The fight with extremists is only beginning for Russia in Syria, now that Moscow has bolstered the position of Bashar Assad and the secular Alawite regime. For Putin and for Russia, Syria is the focal point of international action, and the current arena for diplomatic as well as military interaction with the United States, but it is also a critical element for Putin in his efforts to maintain control of the homefront.

Last week, CNN ran a back-to-school story on homework with the headline, “Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework, Study Finds; What’s the Cost?” Homework is an important topic, especially for parents, but unfortunately, CNN’s story misleads rather than informs. The headline suggests American parents should be alarmed because their kids have too much homework. Should they? No, CNN has ignored the best evidence on that question, which suggests the opposite. The story relies on the results of one recent study of homework—a study that is limited in what it can tell us, mostly because of its research design. But CNN even gets its main findings wrong. The study suggests most students have too little homework, not too much.

The study that piqued CNN’s interest was conducted during four months (two in the spring and two in the fall) in Providence, Rhode Island. About 1,200 parents completed a survey about their children’s homework while waiting in 27 pediatricians’ offices. Is the sample representative of all parents in the U.S.? Probably not. Certainly CNN should have been a bit leery of portraying the results of a survey conducted in a single American city—any city—as evidence applying to a broader audience. More importantly, viewers are never told of the study’s significant limitations: that the data come from a survey conducted in only one city—in pediatricians’ offices by a self-selected sample of respondents.

The survey’s sampling design is a huge problem. Because the sample is non-random there is no way of knowing if the results can be extrapolated to a larger population—even to families in Providence itself. Close to a third of respondents chose to complete the survey in Spanish. Enrollment in English Language programs in the Providence district comprises about 22 percent of students. About one-fourth (26 percent) of survey respondents reported having one child in the family. According to the 2010 Census, the proportion of families nationwide with one child is much higher, at 43 percent.^[i] The survey is skewed towards large, Spanish-speaking families. Their experience with homework could be unique, especially if young children in these families are learning English for the first time at school.

The survey was completed by parents who probably had a sick child as they were waiting to see a pediatrician. That’s a stressful setting. The response rate to the survey is not reported, so we don’t know how many parents visiting those offices chose not to fill out the survey. If the typical pediatrician sees 100 unique patients per month, in a four month span the survey may have been offered to more than ten thousand parents in the 27 offices. The survey respondents, then, would be a tiny slice, 10 to 15 percent, of those eligible to respond. We also don’t know the public-private school break out of the respondents, or how many were sending their children to charter schools. It would be interesting to see how many parents willingly send their children to schools with a heavy homework load.

I wish the CNN team responsible for this story had run the data by some of CNN’s political pollsters. Alarm bells surely would have gone off. The hazards of accepting a self-selected, demographically-skewed survey sample as representative of the general population are well known. Modern political polling—and its reliance on random samples—grew from an infamous mishap in 1936. A popular national magazine, the Literary Digest, distributed 10 million post cards for its readers to return as “ballots” indicating who they would vote for in the 1936 race for president. More than two million post cards were returned! A week before the election, the magazine confidently predicted that Alf Landon, the Republican challenger from Kansas, would defeat Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic incumbent, by a huge margin: 57 percent to 43 percent. In fact, when the real election was held, the opposite occurred: Roosevelt won more than 60% of the popular vote and defeated Landon in a landslide. Pollsters learned that self-selected samples should be viewed warily. The magazine’s readership was disproportionately Republican to begin with, and sometimes disgruntled subjects are more likely to respond to a survey, no matter the topic, than the satisfied.

Here’s a very simple question: In its next poll on the 2016 presidential race, would CNN report the results of a survey of self-selected respondents in 27 pediatricians’ offices in Providence, Rhode Island as representative of national sentiment? Of course not. Then, please, CNN, don’t do so with education topics.

Let’s set aside methodological concerns and turn to CNN’s characterization of the survey’s findings. Did the study really show that most kids have too much homework? No, the headline that “Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework” is not even an accurate description of the study’s findings. CNN’s on air coverage extended the misinformation. The online video of the coverage is tagged “Study: Your Kids Are Doing Too Much Homework.” The first caption that viewers see is “Study Says Kids Getting Way Too Much Homework.” All of these statements are misleading.

In the published version of the Providence study, the researchers plotted the average amount of time spent on homework by students’ grade.^[ii] They then compared those averages to a “10 minutes per-grade” guideline that serves as an indicator of the “right” amount of homework. I have attempted to replicate the data here in table form (they were originally reported in a line graph) to make that comparison easier.^[iii]

Contrary to CNN’s reporting, the data suggest—based on the ten minute per-grade rule—that most kids in this study have too little homework, not too much. Beginning in fourth grade, the average time spent on homework falls short of the recommended amount—a gap of only four minutes in fourth grade that steadily widens in later grades.

A more accurate headline would have been, “Study Shows Kids in Nine out of 13 Grades Have Too Little Homework.” It appears high school students (grades 9-12) spend only about half the recommended time on homework. Two hours of nightly homework is recommended for 12^th graders. They are, after all, only a year away from college. But according to the Providence survey, their homework load is less than an hour.

So how in the world did CNN come up with the headline “Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework?” By focusing on grades K-3 and ignoring all other grades. Here’s the reporting:

The study, published Wednesday in The American Journal of Family Therapy, found students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended.

The standard, endorsed by the National Education Association and the National Parent-Teacher Association, is the so-called "10-minute rule"— 10 minutes per-grade level per-night. That translates into 10 minutes of homework in the first grade, 20 minutes in the second grade, all the way up to 120 minutes for senior year of high school. The NEA and the National PTA do not endorse homework for kindergarten.

In the study involving questionnaires filled out by more than 1,100 English and Spanish speaking parents of children in kindergarten through grade 12, researchers found children in the first grade had up to three times the homework load recommended by the NEA and the National PTA.

Parents reported first-graders were spending 28 minutes on homework each night versus the recommended 10 minutes. For second-graders, the homework time was nearly 29 minutes, as opposed to the 20 minutes recommended.

And kindergartners, their parents said, spent 25 minutes a night on after-school assignments, according to the study…

CNN focused on the four grades, K-3, in which homework exceeds the ten-minute rule. They ignored more than two-thirds of the grades. Even with this focus, a more accurate headline would have been, “Study Suggests First Graders in Providence, RI Have Three Times Too Much Homework.”

Homework is a controversial topic. People hold differing points of view as to whether there is too much, too little, or just the right amount of homework. That makes it vitally important that the media give accurate information on the empirical dimensions to the debate.  The amount of homework kids should have is subject to debate. But the amount of homework kids actually have is an empirical question. We can debate whether it’s too hot outside, but the actual temperature should be a matter of measurement, not debate. It’s impossible to think of a rational debate that can possibly ensue on the homework issue without knowing the empirical status quo in regards to time. Imagine someone beginning a debate by saying, “I am arguing that kids have too much [substitute “too little” here for the pro-homework side] homework but I must admit that I have no idea how much they currently have.”

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provide the best evidence we have on the amount of homework that kids have. NAEP’s sampling design allows us to make inferences about national trends, and the Long-Term Trend (LTT) NAEP offers data on homework since 1984. The latest LTT NAEP results (2012) indicate that the vast majority of nine-year-olds (83 percent) have less than an hour of homework each night. There has been an apparent uptick in the homework load, however, as 35 percent reported no homework in 1984, and only 22 percent reported no homework in 2012. MET Life also periodically surveys a representative sample of students, parents, and teachers on the homework issue. In the 2007 results, a majority of parents (52 percent) of elementary grade students (grades 3-6 in the MET survey) estimated their children had 30 minutes or less of homework.

The MET Life survey found that parents have an overwhelmingly positive view of the amount of homework their children are assigned. Nine out of ten parents responded that homework offers the opportunity to talk and spend time with their children, and most do not see homework as interfering with family time or as a major source of familial stress. Minority parents, in particular, reported believing homework is beneficial for students’ success at school and in the future.^[iv]

That said, just as there were indeed Alf Landon voters in 1936, there are indeed children for whom homework is a struggle. Some bring home more than they can finish in a reasonable amount of time. A complication for researchers of elementary age children is that the same students who have difficulty completing homework may have other challenges—difficulties with reading, low achievement, and poor grades in school.[v] Parents who question the value of homework often have a host of complaints about their child’s school. It is difficult for researchers to untangle all of these factors and determine, in the instances where there are tensions, whether homework is the real cause. To their credit, the researchers who conducted the Providence study are aware of these constraints and present a number of hypotheses warranting further study with a research design supporting causal inferencing. That’s the value of this research, not CNN’s misleading reporting of the findings.

Today’s announcement of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana replaces over five decades of mutual hostility and aggressive name-calling with a new atmosphere of diplomatic civility. The re-opening of embassies in both capitals establishes platforms upon which to build more normal working relations. Now, the hard work begins, as the two nations gradually dismantle the comprehensive wall of restrictions separating them for two generations.

Expectations are running high, especially in Cuba, that diplomatic engagement will catalyze economic betterment on the island. To stimulate more travel and trade, the U.S. government needs to clarify rules for engaging with the emerging Cuban private sector, and make it clear to U.S. banks that they are permitted to support the use of credit cards by U.S. visitors in Cuba. The administration should also begin to consider another round of liberalizing initiatives, some under consideration in the U.S. Congress, to further relax travel restrictions, and to enable more U.S. firms—beyond agriculture and medicines—to assist the Cuban people.

For its part, the Cuban government should open efficient channels to facilitate the commercial exchanges now authorized by the Obama administration. Cuban entrepreneurs should be permitted ready access to U.S. firms wishing to sell building equipment for construction cooperatives, restaurant supplies for private-owned restaurants, and automotive spare parts for private taxis. Micro-enterprise lending should be authorized to support these emerging non-state enterprises.

If both nations build upon today’s welcome announcement by further opening these channels to travel and commerce, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro can help to safeguard their joint legacy. By fortifying and expanding constituencies on both sides of the Florida Straits, immersed in daily exchanges to mutual benefit, the two governments can render their diplomatic accomplishment politically irreversible in both capitals.