IG: State Dept Should Produce 12 FRUS Volumes Per Year
The Department of State must begin producing new volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series at a rate of a dozen volumes per year if it is going to fulfill its statutory mandate to document the history of U.S. foreign policy not later than 30 years after the fact, the State Department Inspector General said in a new report (pdf).
“The [State Department Historian’s Office] is behind schedule in meeting the statutory FRUS deadline: HO historians only now are compiling the contents of the volumes covering the foreign policy of the Carter administration (1977-1981),” the Inspector General report said. “To achieve compliance with the 30-year deadline, HO will need to accelerate the rate of publication to approximately 12 volumes per year.”
The IG audit found that after a controversial period of management turmoil in 2007 and 2008 culminating in a 2009 IG inspection report (pdf), conditions in the Historian’s Office had stabilized, with “improved morale, reduced factionalism, and [a] strengthened spirit of civility” as well as “greater openness and a more participatory style of management.” But more recently, as the pace of internal reform has slowed, “morale has begun to decline.”
See “Report of Inspection: The Bureau of Public Affairs,” U.S. Department of State Office of Inspector General, February 2010, at pp. 34-38.
The incoming administration must act to address bias in medical technology at the development, testing and regulation, and market-deployment and evaluation phases.
Increasingly, U.S. national security priorities depend heavily on bolstering the energy security of key allies, including developing and emerging economies. But U.S. capacity to deliver this investment is hamstrung by critical gaps in approach, capability, and tools.
Most federal agencies consider the start of the hiring process to be the development of the job posting, but the process really begins well before the job is posted and the official clock starts.
The new Administration should announce a national talent surge to identify, scale, and recruit into innovative teacher preparation models, expand teacher leadership opportunities, and boost the profession’s prestige.