How Think Tank Engaged In Educational Decision-making Consultation In U.S. And Its Inspiration To China

Think Tank is also differently called "brain bank", "brain trust" or other terms in Chinese, as a special policy research institution, think tank came into existence and developed to satisfy the increasing need for modern government policy-making that is becoming more and more sophisticated. It provides the educational decision-making consultation for the government, with the purpose of influencing the policy formulation. Compared with other countries, the modern U.S. think tanks have the earliest history, it also has the great influence on the decision-making. This study focuses on six representative think tanks in the field of education, and applies the methods of literature analysis and case study. The main questions include when and why the think tanks focus on the educational policy research, how the relationship between the think tanks and the government change in different periods, especially how think tank engage in the educational decision-making consultation in U.S., it enrich this field. Meanwhile, it also provides useful inspiration for developing Chinese educational policy research institutions.Specifically, this paper is divided into four chapters.Chapter I analyzes the birth and development of the U.S. Educational Think tank from a historical point of view. Through the analysis, we found that the type of educational think tank is developing from single to diversity, the research field is transferring from the educational decision-making to implementation and evaluation, the role is changing from "bystander" to "participant", the value orientation is transferring from independence to ideology. All these due to the establishment of the Federal Ministry of Education, the more difficult of making educational decision, the development of public policy, and the improvement of the research level of think tank.Chapter II explores how think tank engaged in educational decision-making consultation in U.S. from a different angle. Firstly, educational think tanks push the educational problems into the political agenda through the question definition and Pre-warning issue. Secondly, educational think tanks put forward and reorganize the problem-solving research report. Thirdly, the researchers are invited to make a speech on the Congressional Hearing to participate in the policy debate directly, keep in touch with the congressmen to influence the policy debate indirectly, and guide the public debate. Lastly, the bill which passed by the debate should sign by the president in order to make it legalized.Chapter III analyzes the survival soil of the U.S. Think tank, which includes the political factors on the separation of powers, administrative commission, and the parliamentary debate, the economic factors of Foundation and other folk capital provide continuous funding for the development of think tank, and the cultural factors of encouraging individual development and diversity.The last chapter gives a brief comment on the status quo of Chinese education policy-making consultation. According to our conditions, the author poses the suggestions of promoting the education decision-making mechanism and think tank, that is to say, improve the level of decision-making consultation of think tank, strengthen the relationships between the education researchers and education policy makers , improve the system of expert consultation and the Hearing, expand the folk capital, such as the charitable foundations.