Whitney Yax has prepared an infographic that describes the web of connections and experience among the New York Regents Research Fellows.
You will not be surprised to learn that many have a background in Teach for America, the New York City Department of Education, and New Schools for New Leaders.
Nine of the 25 fellows had classroom experience.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here were the LinkedIn profiles of those that had the title in their resume: http://kpae.us/kpae/regents-research-fund-fellows-who-are-they-and-are-they-qualified/
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My hunch is that if you analyzed new employees in most of the RTTT States, you would find a similar pattern.
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What disclosure obligations govern the Regents Fellows? Are we entitled to know what topics they are researching and why? Their research methodology and results (raw data)?
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Lance, they are paid privately and not subject to any laws that govern state employees. But they wield great power over public agenda.
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The creation of private interest groups to set the public agenda is not new, but it has become more sophisticated as a political and policy strategy of our era aided by professionals in impression management and the possibilities for targeted marketing of ideas and done-deals. No registered lobbying required.
Interesting article in the current issue of Educational Researcher, based on interviews with leaders of the CCSS initiative who are quoted from interviews but who are only rarely identified by name.
I don’t think the authors grasped that their interview “data” suffers from a huge credibility gap. Institutions and organizations supporting the initiative are named in a “historical” narrative that deserves a response for factual accuracy and quite a few of the inferential leaps. For example, the article implies that critics of the CCSS (including you and Cody as examples, p. 495) only surfaced as the initiative moved toward implementation. The article has some interesting vignettes on the media campaign to promote the myths that the standards were “state-led,” evidence based,” including the need to thread legal needles, and tailor messages for various groups. McDonnell L.M. & Weatherford, M.S. (2013). Organized Interests and the Common Core. 42(9). pp. 488-497.
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Paid (doesn’t matter by whom) sycophants, to answer your question.
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