Think Tank Critics Launch Policy Center

After five years of providing critical reviews of education-related reports by nonacademic think tanks, education professors Alex Molnar and Kevin G. Welner hope to expand their own reach with a new, broader research center.

The new National Education Policy Center , based at Mr. Welner's academic home, the University of Colorado at Boulder, will consolidate his Education and the Public Interest Center and Mr. Molnar's Education Policy Research Unit , previously at Arizona State University. It will review existing research, conduct new research, and, for the first time for both groups, make policy recommendations.

It will also house the Education Review , NEPC senior researcher Gene V. Glass' education book-review journal; a new international journal, Education Research Global Observatory ; and a new Center on Diversity, Equity, and Learning, for which the NEPC has won a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation , of New York City, to study...