A just-launched project will review education reports released by private think tanks for the quality of their research, methodology, and conclusions, using expert academic reviewers.
The Think Tank Review Project is a joint collaboration of the Arizona State University Education Policy Studies Laboratory and the University of Colorado鈥檚 Education and Public Interest Center. It has pledged to provide 鈥渆xpert reviews鈥� to policymakers, the news media, and the public within two weeks of a report鈥檚 release. The first such reviews鈥攐f three reports released since January鈥攚ere posted online last week at .
The project reflects a growing concern among researchers that studies on hot-button issues increasingly appear in public without having undergone an independent peer review by scholars. The project鈥檚 creators particularly hope to provide a counterpoint to what they view as a proliferation of education reports coming from think tanks that were founded to advance particular ideological points of view. (鈥淩esearch: Researching the Researchers,鈥� Feb. 20, 2002.)
View from Arizona State University鈥檚 .
鈥淒espite garnering media attention and their influence with many legislators, reports released by private think tanks are often of very poor quality,鈥� Alex Molnar, the director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory, said in a press release announcing the project.
鈥淢any think tank reports are little more than ideological argumentation dressed up as research,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e believe that policymakers, reporters, and the public will greatly benefit from having qualified social scientists provide reviews of these documents in a timely fashion.鈥�
Neutrality Debated
Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, a professor of education at Harvard University鈥檚 graduate school of education and a former president of the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation, which focuses on education research, called the project a 鈥渕uch-needed development.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult for laypeople to react critically to the claims made in reports published by these organizations,鈥� she said in an e-mail. 鈥淲e all need help in understanding some of the complicated design issues that arise in evaluating programs, judging the significance of different test scores, and the like.鈥�
But the project itself has raised eyebrows about whether it will be bias-free. Its funding comes from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, an East Lansing, Mich.-based group founded by the Michigan Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association. (鈥淯nion-Funded Study Finds Fault With High-Stakes Testing,鈥� Sept. 28, 2005.)
While it鈥檚 useful and appropriate for researchers and advocates to monitor and critique each other鈥檚 work, said Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the executive editor of Education Next,the Arizona State scholars 鈥渁re more than a little ideological in their own right.鈥�
鈥淓ven aside from the issue of funding, these are individuals who have clearly articulated policy preferences,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hile that鈥檚 fine, they鈥檙e certainly not neutral authorities. I鈥檇 hope that media treat these 鈥榗ritiques鈥� accordingly and carefully weigh their claims.鈥�
Kevin Welner, the director of the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said: 鈥淓ach of our reviewers is an independent scholar. I do not think the reviewers even know the source of the funding. There is absolutely no pressure being exerted by the Great Lakes Center on the content of the reviews.鈥�
The project鈥檚 first three reviews cover a report by the Cato Institute and the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation, on the District of Columbia voucher program; a report by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Studies evaluating Florida鈥檚 plan to end social promotion, which later appeared as an article in Education Next; and a report by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute on the status of high school education in that state.
