Publish your opinions anywhere you can. At least tell us, your colleagues, by posting on listservs. Others will learn from your ideas and might be able to use them. There are of course other possibilities: letters to the editor, op-eds, blogs, articles in professional journals, general-interest magazines, newsletters, etc.

Each person has to discover what is comfortable for them. I like to write journal papers and letters-to-the-editor, and I stick to these formats. For some reason, I find it hard to write op-eds or "general interest" articles. (Thomas Feyer, letter editor for the New York Times, has provided some good advice on writing letters-to-the-editor (Feyer, 2004).

Right now, the public is only hearing from amateurs with little or no experience in educational practice or research. The public needs to hear from the real experts.

The acceptance of new ideas depends on a variety of factors: One factor is obvious - how much people know about the new idea. Rogers (1983) notes that we see no acceptance of new ideas until potential "adaptors" have a minimum amount of information. But once a certain threshold is reached, increases in information result in substantial increases in acceptance of the new idea (p. 235).

We are, in my view, far below the minimum. Getting information to the public, and eventually to opinion leaders, is a task we must all take part in.

Websites:

References

Fever, T, 2004. The Letters Editor and the reader: Our compact, Updated. New York Times, May 23, 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/opinion/23READ.html?ex=1098781586&ei=1&en=167fb22576f65f52 accessed October 17, 2004

Rogers, E. 1983. Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press. (third edition).

Stefancic, J. and Delgado, R. 1996. No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

2