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Think Tank Review Project
By J. E. Stone, Ed.D., East Tennessee State University
Despite the fact that the field of education has historically been riddled with fads and failures, the Think Tank Review Project focuses exclusively on research conducted by education’s external critics, e.g., the Fordham Foundation, the Education Trust, etc. The vast inventory of studies supporting education’s failed and failing programs is ignored.
In theory, the Project attempts to protect the public from shoddy research. In practice, it attempts to discredit only those researchers who question the worth of policies and practices that are popular with educators but of dubious value to the consuming public.
For example, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is enthusiastically supported by teacher organizations. Teachers certified by the NBPTS earn bonuses of up to $10,000 for 10 years. Unfortunately, NBPTS was developed on the basis of flimsy research that claimed NBPTS teachers are exceptionally effective, and it is now being buried in an avalanche (www.education-consumers.com/nbpts-sanders.html) of unfavorable findings.
The Arizona State project has noticed none of these shortcomings despite the fact that they would be of great interest to parents, policymakers, and taxpayers; and don’t look for it to take an interest in NBPTS any time in the near future. If the NBPTS program expands to its planned capacity, it will put something like $17.5 billion into the pockets of teachers over the next 10 years.
The Think Tank Project and its friends are apologists for the education industry. At the heart of their work is a conflict of interest. They would have the public believe that they are impartial judges of educational research when, in truth, they and their industry benefit from reports that selectively target the industry’s critics. Not only are the Project’s fellows and editorial board mostly well remunerated, leading lights of their industry, they are celebrated as defenders. For example, one editorial board member won the National Education Association’s Friend of Education Award for writing a book that claimed public education’s declining quality to be a false crisis “manufactured” by its enemies.
In essence, the Think Tank Project engages in the same kind of misrepresentation (www.education-consumers.com/articles/Buyers%20and%20Sellers.pdf) that was at the heart of the Enron scandal. The brokerage houses that were presumably protecting the interests of Enron stock purchasers were really in bed with Enron.
The same observation applies to the ASU Think Tank Project. It will gain credibility only if it scrutinizes some of the costly and counterproductive fadslike NBPTSthat exist right under its nose.
J. E. Stone, Ed.D.. is a professor at East Tennessee State University and president of the Education Consumers Foundation (at www.education-consumers.com).