Biden’s Staff Turnover, Approaches to School Discipline, and More

January 21, 2023

United States President Joe Biden enters the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC

The Biden ‘A-Team’ after 24 months: A significant uptick in year two departures

“The bottom-line is that with cumulative staff turnover at 40%, there is a good chance that by the end of year three, over 50% of the ‘A-Team’ will have moved on.” Kathryn Dunn Tenpas provides an overview of the high-level personnel turnover in the first two years of the Biden administration.

Understanding how U.S. public schools approach school discipline

In an effort to reform zero-tolerance policies, which suspend or expel students for a range of infractions, many U.S. schools have adopted alternative approaches that aim to keep students in school. Rachel Perera and Melissa Kay Diliberti highlight the findings from a national survey of public school principals to assess how common these alternative approaches have become.

Now is the time to save the all-volunteer force

Recent reports indicate that the United States may be near a historical low point for interest in military service, which has major implications for national security. Brookings Federal Executive Fellows Brad McNally, Marcos Melendez, and Jason Wolff propose ways to address this problem.

Foreign policy opinion pieces to catch up on

Biden’s mid-term report card. “Since Russia’s invasion, U.S. President Joe Biden has successfully created a robust trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific coalition to support Ukraine and sanction Russia,” writes Angela Stent for Foreign Policy.

Scholz is a wartime chancellor, whether he likes it or not. Berlin has performed the feat of fully decoupling from Russian fossil fuel imports in less than a year. On defense, however, its record is far less impressive, Constanze Stelzenmüller assesses in the Financial Times.

Turkey’s Boğaziçi University faculty deserves pride of place. The resistance of the faculty at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul against persistent government efforts to destroy democratic thought deserves greater attention, as it encapsulates many aspects of the global struggle between democracy and autocracy, argue Ayşe Candan Kirişci and Kemal Kirişci for Just Security.

The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars.

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