2024 Rankings Determine Public Influence of Edu-Scholars

Today, we present the 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, which rank the top 200 scholars based at universities in the United States who had the greatest impact on educational practice and policy last year. The rankings consist of the top 150 finishers from last year, as well as additional nominees selected by the 39-member Selection Committee. So, without further ado, here are the 2024 rankings (scroll through the chart to view all names and scores).

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To learn more about the committee, selection process, and methodology, you can refer to our post from yesterday.

The top performers on the rankings are well-known names in the field of education. Leading the list this year is Howard Gardner of Harvard, John McWhorter of Columbia, Pedro Noguera of the University of Southern California (who co-authored a book with me titled A Search for Common Ground in 2021 and jointly hosted the “Common Ground” podcast in 2021 and 2022), and Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler of Stanford. The remaining top 10 scholars include Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania (who also blogs for EdWeek), Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford, Raj Chetty from Harvard, Daniel Willingham from the University of Virginia, and Shaun Harper from the University of Southern California.

Stanford University had the most scholars in the top 20 with six, followed by Harvard with three, and Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia, and UC Berkeley with two each. Harvard had the most ranked scholars overall with 26, followed by Stanford with 17, and UCLA with 11. In total, 58 different universities had at least one ranked scholar.

Once again, the most popular books among the Edu-Scholars were mostly the same as in previous years. The top book on the list was Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster, published in 2014. At second place was Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, published in 2007. Other popular titles included Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner (2011), The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (2017), Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (2016), and Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum and Instruction by Gholdy Muhammad (2023).

If readers wish to question the construction, reliability, or validity of any or all of these metrics, please feel free to do so. This endeavor, like college rankings, NFL quarterback ratings, or international scorecards of human rights, is an imperfect exercise. Nonetheless, these efforts provide valuable information and foster meaningful discussions. I hope that they will do the same here. And, it should be noted that individuals can have influential roles in both positive and negative ways. This ranking is an attempt to assess influence, not to judge the merits of a scholar’s contributions.

I am open to thoughts, questions, and suggestions, so please take a look and let me know what you think.

Tomorrow, we will delve into the top 10 scholars in each discipline.

Frederick Hess is the Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an Executive Editor of Education Next.

This article was originally published on Rick Hess Straight Up.