Economist Tim Sass Ranked Among Nation’s Top Education Scholars

ATLANTA—Georgia State University economist Tim Sass has been ranked among the nation’s top education scholars, according to the 2022 “Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings” released today by Education Week blogger Frederick M. Hess, the American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy studies.

The rankings recognize the top 200 university-based education scholars — of any discipline — determined to have had the biggest influence on the nation’s education discourse by moving ideas from academic journals into the national conversation last year. Their influence, as reflected in old and new media, was calculated using nine metrics including Google Scholar, Amazon rankings, Congressional Record mentions, education press and web mentions, and Twitter scores. Sass was ranked No. 151.

Sass is a Distinguished University Professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He holds the W.J. Usery Chair of the American Workplace and is faculty director of the Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Education in the Georgia Policy Labs. An applied micro-economist whose research focuses on the economics of education, his areas of interest include teacher labor supply, the measurement of teacher quality and school choice.

“Given that there are well over 20,000 university-based faculty tackling educational questions in the U.S., it’s a considerable accomplishment to be ranked in the top 200,” Tracey Schirra, research associate for education policy at the American Enterprise Institute wrote in an email informing Sass of his ranking.

The Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings were created in 2010 to recognize scholars who work to move ideas from the pages of barely read journals into practice and policy. They are a data-informed effort to spur discussion about the nature of responsible public engagement: who's doing a good job, how much these things matter and how to gauge a scholar's contribution.

“One small way to encourage academics to step into the fray and revisit academic norms is, I think, by doing more to recognize and value those scholars who engage in public discourse,” explained Hess. “As I see it, the extraordinary policy scholar excels in five areas: disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis and popular writing, convening and shepherding collaborations, providing incisive media commentary and speaking in the public square. Such efforts convey real information and help spark useful discussion.”

Find the rankings and more information here.