Stanford led the pack in an annual list of the scholars who have the greatest influence on the public debate on schools and schooling, according to a Jan. 9 posting on a blog on the Education Week website.

Out of a total of 168 featured on the annual ranking, there were 17 academics who were listed as being from Stanford. That tied for first with Harvard, which also had 17.

Known as the Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings, the list is compiled by American Enterprise Institute director of education policy studies and Education Week blogger Frederick Hess. The list highlights scholars “who work to move ideas from the pages of academic journals into the national conversation,” according to a release announcing the 2013 rankings.

Hess uses seven metrics to calculate the extent that university-based academics contributed to public debates about schools and schooling. “The rankings reflect both a scholar's body of academic work—encompassing books, articles, and the degree to which these are cited—and their 2012 footprint on the public discourse as reflected by appearances in education news outlets, blogs, new media, and the general press,” the release says. 

Linda Darling-Hammond of the Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) was tied for first on the list with Diane Ravitch of New York University. Other members of the GSE faculty on the rankings are Larry Cuban, Nel Noddings, Susanna Loeb, Michael Kirst, David Labaree, Thomas Dee, Edward Haertel, Mitchell Stevens, Eric Bettinger and Michelle Reininger. 

Eric Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor by courtesy at the GSE, ranked third. Hess also lists five other scholars from Stanford: Caroline Hoxby, Terry Moe, Margaret (Macke) Raymond, Rob Reich and Anthony Bryk, who had been on the GSE faculty before leaving to become president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.