In July 2012, the City of Santa Monica Human Services Division and the Santa Monica–Malibu Unified School District contracted with the RAND Corporation to conduct an assessment of child care programs in Santa Monica. The project sought to assess how well Santa Monica’s early and school-age care programs meet the needs of families. Recommendations for improvement focused on advancing access, quality, service delivery, and financial sustainability.

In July 2012, the City of Santa Monica Human Services Division and the Santa Monica–Malibu Unified School District contracted with the RAND Corporation to conduct an assessment of child care programs in Santa Monica. The project sought to assess how well Santa Monica’s early and school-age care programs meet the needs of families. Recommendations for improvement focused on advancing access, quality, service delivery, and financial sustainability.

This report models numbers of undocumented and asylum-seeking children crossing the U.S. southwest border, reviews the federal and state policy landscapes for their education, and provides case studies of how schools are managing education for them.

With four million Syrian refugees as of September 2015, there is urgent need to develop both short-term and long-term approaches to providing education for the children of this population. This report reviews Syrian refugee education for children in the three neighboring countries with the largest population of refugees—Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan—and analyzes four areas: access, management, society, and quality.

This report assesses the effectiveness of China’s industrial policies, using China’s commercial aviation manufacturing industry as a case study. It evaluates China’s efforts to create a national champion in this industry, and analyzes foreign manufacturers’ efforts to protect key technologies when setting up production facilities there. It also offers policy options for foreign governments responding to Chinese policies.

Land-based anti-ship missiles (ASMs) feature prominently in the capabilities of many island nations in the Western Pacific, but the United States currently lacks such systems. This report illustrates the potential strategic advantages of the United States working with partners to build a coalition ASM capability, particularly in the event of a conflict with China, and includes an assessment of logistical challenges and positioning approaches.

How safe should highly automated vehicles (HAVs) be before they are allowed on the roads for consumer use? In this report, RAND researchers use the RAND Model of Automated Vehicle Safety to compare road fatalities over time under a policy that allows HAVs to be deployed when their safety performance is just moderately better than human drivers and a policy that waits to deploy HAVs only once their performance is nearly perfect.

This report evaluates the potential for further escalation in the conflict in Ukraine, including the prospects for escalation to Russian nuclear use. The report is intended to inform U.S. and NATO policymakers as they consider how to avoid further escalation of the conflict while assisting Ukraine in its efforts to defeat the Russian invasion and to better inform the public debate around these issues.

This report describes a comparative analysis of three proposals to allow Americans to keep their existing health plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposals are evaluated based on their potential impact on the ACA-compliant market and the cost and coverage of health insurance. The possibility of each proposal causing a “death spiral” in the ACA-compliant market is also addressed.

Tracing the evolution of the U.S. Army throughout American history, the authors of this four-volume series show that there is no such thing as a “traditional” U.S. military policy. Rather, the laws that authorize, empower, and govern the U.S. armed forces emerged from long-standing debates and a series of legislative compromises between 1903 and 1940. Volume I traces U.S. military policy from the colonial era through the Spanish-American War.

Tracing the evolution of the U.S. Army throughout American history, the authors of this four-volume series show that there is no such thing as a “traditional” U.S. military policy. Rather, the laws that authorize, empower, and govern the U.S. armed forces emerged from long-standing debates and a series of legislative compromises between 1903 and 1940. Volume II focuses on the laws enacted in the early 20th century that transformed the Army.

Tracing the evolution of the U.S. Army throughout American history, the authors of this four-volume series show that there is no such thing as a “traditional” U.S. military policy. Rather, the laws that authorize, empower, and govern the U.S. armed forces emerged from long-standing debates and a series of legislative compromises between 1903 and 1940. Volume IV traces how Total Force Policy has been implemented since 1970.

As the U.S. National Defense Strategy recognizes, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. It examines Russian vulnerabilities and anxieties; analyzes potential policy options to exploit them; and assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood of successful implementation.