Education Week - January 14, 2015 - 18

COMMENTArY
The 2015 Edu-Scholar Rankings
By Frederick M. Hess
O
Name
1 Morgan Polikoff
Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration
2 Benjamin L. Castleman
Government/Policy
3 Jal Mehta
Sociology
4 David Deming
Economics
5 Martin West
Government/Policy
6 Erica Frankenberg
Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration
7 Judith Scott-Clayton
Economics
8 Daphna Bassok
Economics
9 Marcus Winters
Economics
10 Matthew G. Springer
Government/Policy
11 Sarah Reckhow
Government/Policy
12 Jennifer Jennings
Sociology
nce again, as I've done
annually since 2010
over at the Rick Hess
Straight Up blog, I've
compiled the EduScholar
Public Influence
Rankings.
The 2015 rhsu rankings
recognize 200 of the nation's most influential
education researchers, acknowledging
those university-based academics who invest
the time and effort to contribute to the
public discourse in a way that registers. The
exercise is useful because, while acclaimed
physicists or philosophers may have an outsize
impact whether or not their work ever
registers beyond the ivory tower, the very
nature of educational research is that it's
intended to have a public impact-on educational
practice or policy.
The extraordinary public scholar excels
in disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis
and popular writing, convening and shepherding
collaborations, providing incisive
commentary, and speaking in the public
square. The Rick Hess Straight Up rankings
are composed of metrics that seek to
reflect those qualities. They include measures
of scholarly influence, number and
popularity of books authored, presence in
the general and education media, online
impact, and more. The rankings include
the top 150 finishers from the 2014 rankings,
augmented by 50 at-large additions
chosen by a selection committee of 31 accomplished
scholars. (For more information
on the selection committee, go to edweek.org/
go/rhsu_committee.)
Now, no one should overstate the precision
of this exercise. It's best to think of it
like you think of attempts to rank quarterbacks,
presidents, or mutual-fund managers.
It's a data-informed effort to spur
discussion about which scholars are applying
their knowledge and skills in a fashion
that's important, but too often overlooked.
After all, many faculty members tell me
that they feel like they have little time to
engage in the public square, few mechanisms
for doing so, and little incentive to
make the effort. Junior faculty, in particular,
note the pressure to write for academic
peers and to avoid saying things that might
hurt their chances for tenure or promotion.
Yet, it is junior faculty members who are
doing some of the most intriguing and relevant
new work, forging habits that can
shape a career, and shaping the future of
the profession. For that reason, as Karen
Symms Gallagher of the University of
Southern California's Rossier School of Education
notes in one of three related Commentaries
in this issue (Page 19), there's
particular value in helping junior faculty
RHSU 2015 TOP 12 JUNIOR SCHOLARS
This table lists the most influential university scholars who have not yet received tenure, according
to the Rick Hess Straight Up rankings. Given the premium placed on overall bodies of academic
accomplishment, Mr. Hess says it is particularly impressive when junior academics are recognized. For
background on how the scoring was conducted, visit edweek.org/go/rhsu_committee.
POINTS AWARDED IN THESE CATEGORIES
Affiliation
USC
U. Virginia
Harvard
Harvard
Harvard
Penn State
Columbia (TC)
U. Virginia
UC Colorado Springs
Vanderbilt
Michigan State
NYU
Google
Scholar
10.0
6.0
9.0
8.0
19.0
18.0
13.0
5.0
17.0
16.0
5.0
10.0
Book Points
0.0
1.0
3.0
0.0
2.0
2.0
0.0
0.0
2.0
1.5
2.0
0.0
Highest
Amazon
Ranking
0.0
15.8
11.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Education
Press
Mentions Web Mentions
13.0
3.5
2.5
0.3
2.5
1.0
1.8
5.0
1.0
0.0
0.5
1.5
7.8
5.0
4.0
24.6
6.1
3.3
5.1
5.5
1.2
1.5
2.4
2.8
Newspaper
Mentions
11.0
11.5
2.0
3.0
0.5
2.5
2.5
6.5
0.0
3.5
2.5
0.5
Congressional
Record
Mentions
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Klout Points SCORE
48.3
6.5
4.9
4.2
0.0
4.9
2.7
0.0
3.5
3.2
0.0
4.3
0.0
47.7
36.3
35.9
35.0
29.5
27.4
25.5
24.4
22.5
16.7
14.8
engage constructively in the public square.
(That's why the accompanying table makes
a special effort to recognize the dozen junior
faculty who cracked this year's Top 200.)
The consequence of university faculty
members' retreat to the cozy confines of
the ivory tower is especially problematic
on two counts. Today's public debates are
often driven by the most bombastic advocates,
or those pundits with the most time
to tweet and coin glib sound bites. At the
same time, we've constructed an academic
culture that has too often celebrated irrelevance
and impenetrability as perverse
badges of honor, rewarding professors for
mastering jargon and the art of arcane
ideological posturing.
The result of all this is less informed,
less measured, and less constructive public
debate. The Edu-Scholar Rankings are intended
as one modest effort to help change
that dynamic.
The rankings are meant to complement
like-minded efforts in academe, of the kind
that Robert C. Pianta is leading at the
University of Virginia's Curry School of
Education. And, of course, as the Harvard
Graduate School of Education's James E.
Ryan notes, the expectation cannot simply
be new burdens for faculty-and none of
this should be read as an excuse to compromise
the quality of research. (That's
why the rankings place such substantial
weight on bodies of scholarly work.) The
aim is to highlight researchers who are
doing good research and also carrying that
work into the public sphere, hopefully in a
way that encourages a more robust appreciation
of scholarly accomplishment.
What we see from some of the nation's
most respected education school deans,
like Karen Gallagher, Bob Pianta, and
Jim Ryan, is a frank recognition of the
challenges and an admirable interest in
addressing them. Fifteen years ago, when
I was a junior professor at a school of education,
leaders were generally less inclined
to see a need or to act on it. But changes
in technology, publishing, policymaking,
and education have conspired to alter that
state of affairs.
What we need today are more universities
where faculty members are valued for entering
the public square, not as advocates, ideologues,
or amateur pundits, but as learned individuals
who make it a point to speak their
truth, clearly and well. If these rankings help
on that count, they've served their purpose. n
FREDERICK M. HESS is the director of education
policy studies at the Washington-based American
Enterprise Institute and writes the opinion blog Rick
Hess Straight Up for edweek.org. He teaches at
Georgetown University, Rice University in Houston, and
the University of Pennsylvania. He created the EduScholars
Public Influence Rankings in 2010.
To read more about the 2015 Edu-Scholar
Public Influence Rankings, go to
www.edweek.org/go/rhsu-rankings.
18 | EDUCATION WEEK | January 14, 2015 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary
http://www.edweek.org/go/rhsu_committee http://www.edweek.org/go/rhsu_committee http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/rhsu-rankings http://www.edweek.org/go/rhsu_committee http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary
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