To the Editor:
The editors of Education Week apparently felt that it was important to identify the new report by Sharon L. Nichols, Gene V. Glass, and David C. Berliner about the effects of high-stakes testing as being “union-funded,” so much so that they chose to include this fact in the story’s headline, (“Union-Funded Study Finds Fault With High-Stakes Testing,” Sept. 28, 2005).
I hope you will provide readers with the same level of information about all future studies. For example, when Eric A. Hanushek next releases a study, we need to know who funds him at the Hoover Institution. In the headline.
When Frederick M. Hess releases a study, we need to know who funds him at the American Enterprise Institute.
For that matter, let’s learn about who funds the Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress and every other think tank and foundation-funded effort—right, left, and center.
Transparency about who pays the bills can only help our ability to judge the integrity of various researchers’ efforts.
Remember what we have learned from analyses of medical research during the past decade: When it comes to research findings, money matters a great deal.
David Marshak
Professor
College of Education
Seattle University
Seattle, Wash.