Johns Hopkins education professors Jonathan Plucker and David Steiner have once again been ranked among the nation’s most influential education scholars in the 2024 Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings.
Compiled annually by American Enterprise Institute director of education policy studies and Education Week contributor Rick Hess—and chosen from among more than 20,000 or more university-based scholars—the list spotlights the top 200 “who did the most last year to shape educational practice and policy.”
Jonathan Plucker, the Julian C. Stanley Endowed Professor of Talent Development and associate dean of faculty affairs at the School of Education, is an educational psychologist whose research examines education policy and talent development. His work studying excellence gaps is part of a larger effort to reorient the thinking of policymakers and educators toward promoting achievement for all children. Plucker’s work has been supported by over $40 million in external grants and contracts. He has also published over 300 articles, chapters, and reports, as well as the award-winning book, Creativity and Innovation: Theory, Research, and Practice, the second edition of which hit the shelves in 2023.
David Steiner, professor and executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, recently served as a member of the Maryland Board of Education and on the landmark “Kirwan Commission,” which produced the comprehensive recommendations behind the historic Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation, passed in 2021. Steiner previously served as commissioner of education for New York State, dean at the Hunter College School of Education, and director of education at the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2023, he published A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools, a penetrating, wide-ranging analysis of U.S. K-12 education and vision for its future.
“Simply making this list of 200 scholars is noteworthy,” Hess said. “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.”
The list’s methodology scores each scholar in eight categories, including mentions in the education press, newspapers, web sources, and the Congressional Record; as well as the expert’s Google Scholar Score, which tabulates others’ academic citations of their work.
