Message from the Editor

Our cover photograph depicts the firm yet disquieting position in which U.S. troops often find themselves today, both in wartime and in peacetime. The troops belong to an unwavering and unrivaled military force, and yet the unwavering stance itself could become a source of weakness in a world of unknowable threats.

The photograph symbolizes both what is right and what is wrong with the current management of U.S. military personnel. On the one hand, the military compensation and personnel system puts every member of every service on an essentially equal career footing, affords everyone similar opportunities, and rewards everyone rather fairly, either as officers or as enlisted personnel. As a rule, the system is stable, predictable, and equitable.

On the other hand, the system does not give commanders the flexibility to manage personnel in different occupations differently, despite huge occupational differences in skills, aptitudes, and competing civilian opportunities. U.S. personnel themselves need to be flexible, creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, and ready to take intelligent risks. But the personnel system offers few incentives to promote these characteristics. As a rule, the system is fixed, rigid, and unyielding.

The challenge for military commanders today is to retain the stability and equity of the existing compensation and personnel system while accommodating the flexibility and creativity required for meeting the larger goal of military transformation. Our cover story by Beth Asch and James Hosek offers a set of proposals to help commanders strike the proper balance.

Our two other feature stories address equally unintended imbalances. The story on family background argues that national and statewide efforts intended to boost educational achievement among racial and ethnic minorities should place a heavier weight on improving the socioeconomic conditions and educational opportunities that often correspond with the racial and ethnic achievement gaps. The story is a joint effort by two teams of researchers — one led by Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, the other by Mark Berends.

In our third feature story, Felicia Wu and William Butz point out that an imbalance of initiative has stalled global progress toward an agricultural revolution that could ease hunger for hundreds of millions of people. Too much of the initiative has come from private industry. Too little of the initiative has come from public policy.

—John Godges