Faculty Influence Recognized in Annual Rankings
Four faculty members and an associated scholar with Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy were named to the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings for their work bringing research out of academic journals and into everyday life.
Professors Larry Hedges, Kirabo Jackson, Carol Lee, James Spillane, and Elizabeth Tipton were among the 200 researchers selected from more than 20,000 university-based scholars in the U.S. This marks the sixth consecutive year all four have been cited. Two of them — Hedges and Spillane — are first-generation scholars.
Created by Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an opinion blogger for Education Week, the rankings use eight publicly available metrics: Google Scholar citations, book points, highest Amazon ranking, syllabus points, and mentions in the education press, on the web, in newspapers and in the Congressional Record.
The final list includes the top 150 finishers from last year, augmented by “at-large” additions named by a selection committee. Here’s more on the scoring formula.
Read more about SESP’s winners:
Larry Hedges is best known for developing statistical methods for meta-analysis — a statistical approach that combines the results of multiple studies — across the social, medical and biological sciences. He received the José Vasconcelos World Award of Education from the World Cultural Council in 2023. In 2018, he received the Yidan Prize for Education Research, the world’s largest education award. The Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy, Hedges is among the most cited scholars on the list, with 134,769 citations over his career. His 2021 book, Introduction to Meta-Analysis, has been cited 20,974 times, according to Google Scholar. His 2014 book, Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis, has more than 19,000 citations. Hedges has appeared on the Edu-Scholar list since 2019.
Kirabo Jackson is the Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy. He served as one of three members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from July 2023 to October 2024. A labor economist, Jackson examines central questions in education, including the effects of school spending, what makes an effective teacher and the long-term benefits of developing social-emotional skills in high school. His recent research — among his most influential — suggests that the most effective teachers do not necessarily raise test scores. Instead, they help students develop so-called soft skills, or personality traits. His work on school spending challenged the conventional belief that spending levels do not matter and that standardized test scores are the best measure of achievement. Jackson has shown that increased investment in students is linked to improved long-term outcomes, including higher graduation rates and college attendance and persistence. He has been recognized as an Edu-Scholar since 2016.
Carol D. Lee is professor emerita and former Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education in the School of Education and Social Policy and African American studies. A member of the American Academy of arts and Sciences, she was chair of the National Board for Education Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. An Edu-Scholar for more than a decade, Lee is widely known for research demonstrating the importance of drawing on students’ cultural knowledge to support rigorous learning. She is also a co-founder of four African-centered schools with a 40-year history.
James Spillane, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change, is a leading 
scholar on school leadership, organizational change and policy implementation at the state, school and classroom levels. Known for his collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, he studies how leaders build education systems and make instructional decisions. Spillane’s work challenged traditional top-down views of leadership, showing that schools benefit when leadership is distributed and when educators interact informally, including through everyday encounters. A first-generation high school and college student from rural Ireland, Spillane has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education. He has been on the Edu-Scholar list since 2016.
Beth Tipton is a professor of statistics and data science who creates tools to help people use scientific research to make better decisions in areas like education, health, and social policy. Throughout her career, Tipton has emphasized that research should reflect these real-world conditions so decision-makers can understand how well an approach is likely to work in practice, not just in theory. Her work is based at Northwestern University’s Statistics for Evidence-Based Policy and Practice (STEPP) Center, part of the Institute for Policy Research, which she co-founded and co-directs. The center supports funded research that develops better ways to produce evidence, combine findings from multiple studies, and translate research into information that policymakers and practitioners can actually use. Tipton, a member of the National Academy of Education, is an elected fellow of both the American Statistical Association and the American Educational Research Association.