We must attend to important issues neglected and mishandled by the existing think tanks. They include many existential threats.
Informed, civil disagreement is the route to objective policy assessments and enlightened policymaking.
Competing analyses, plus commentary, yield objective assessments.
WHY IOPA?
We find ourselves in dangerous circumstances despite the existing think tanks best efforts, and because of some of those efforts.
It can take new teams of scholars to explore new ideas in new ways. Groupthink and not-invented-here attitudes are common, serious impediments to much needed new ideas.
IOPA will accelerate its efforts to:
a) preserve, study, and assert marginalized ideas, insights, and endangered theses;
b) identify and study important overlooked issues;
c) expand the concept of accountability to scholars and journalists;
d) virtuously police counter-productive labels, language, and narratives; and
e) be thought leaders. Consider this general, real example of thought leadership.
An actual conversation between IOPA’s JM and BF: JM – “Bill we need to study XYZ.” BF — “John, no one is talking about that.” JM — “they need to be!”
All of this illustrates why IOPA will struggle to find support from typical sources, which is why your support is especially important and productive.
Publications
Phelps, Richard P. 2023. The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation, and Selfishness. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Merrifield, John. 2022/2019. School System Reform: How and Why is a Price-less Tale. Murrells Inlet, SC: Covenant Press. - a 2022 update of a book first published in 2019.
Phelps, Richard P. 2008. Correcting Fallacies about Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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