National 'Edu-Scholar' Impact Rankings Feature Five Education Reform Faculty Members

Five faculty members from the Department of Education Reform are among the 200 most influential education scholars in the nation, according to Education Week's 2026 "Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings."

The five College of Education and Health Professions faculty members are Robert Maranto, Joshua McGee, Harry Patrinos, Patrick J. Wolf and Gema Zamarro.

Each year, the Edu-Scholar Rankings rank the top 200 university-based scholars in the country who had the greatest impact on educational practice and policy last year.

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, uses eight measures to rank the scholars who move their ideas from academic journals into the national conversation. Professors receive points for their Google Scholar H-index, published books, works listed on the published syllabi of other faculty, legacy media mentions, social media impact and mention in the U.S. Congressional Record. Nearly 20,000 faculty members qualify for consideration each year.

Four of the Education Reform faculty members who appear in this year's rankings increased their ranking from 2025 to 2026. Maranto made the largest leap of the U of A faculty from 149th in 2025 to a tie for 103rd this year. Wolf's ranking increased by 12 spots from 33rd last year, landing him in the top 25 of all education scholars in the nation.

Faculty in the U of A Education Reform Department have been recognized as Edu-Scholars every year since the ranking began in 2011.

Maranto, Twenty-First Century Chair in Leadership, researches education reform and has done fieldwork in over 200 schools. He served five years on his local school board and more than 10 years on a cyber charter board. Maranto previously taught at Villanova and served in government in the Bill Clinton years. He edits the Journal of School Choice. Along with other co-authors, he has produced 17 scholarly books, including The Free Inquiry Papers (AEI, 2025), COVID-19 and Schools: Policy, Stakeholders, and School Choice (Routledge, 2024), Educating Believers: Religion and School Choice (Routledge, 2020) and President Obama and Education Reform (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2012).

McGee, Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Education Transparency and Accountability, is an economist and faculty affiliate of the Office for Education Policy, where much of his research focuses on improving education in Arkansas. He previously served as the State of Arkansas' chief data officer and brings extensive experience in leadership roles in education, government, nonprofits and philanthropy. His work focuses on helping governments and nonprofits use data and evidence to drive measurable results. His research investigates issues related to retirement policy, PK-20 education and workforce development and has been published in numerous popular media outlets and scholarly journals.

Patrinos, Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Education Policy, is an internationally recognized expert in K-12 education policy and has three decades of leadership experience across various fields, including management, international organizations, research, economic analysis and government. He joined the College of Education and Health Professions as head of the Education Reform Department in the fall, following a successful career at the World Bank, where he served as a senior adviser for education. Patrinos recently released a book that provides a systematic and empirical assessment of COVID-19's impact on education systems worldwide. The book, Improving National Education Systems After COVID-19, is open access and can be downloaded for free. Patrinos, in conjunction with researchers from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and others, also recently released a paper focused on learning loss, titled "The Learning Crisis: Three Years After COVID-19."

Wolf, Distinguished Professor of Education Policy and Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in School Choice, has appeared on the Edu-Scholars list every year since it began. After teaching at Columbia and Georgetown universities, Wolf joined the U of A in 2006. His research focuses on school choice, including voucher programs. His research has been supported by 49 external grants and contracts totaling nearly $24 million. He is the co-author or editor of five books, including School Choice: Separating Fact from Fiction, published by Routledge, and The School Choice Journey: School Vouchers and the Empowerment of Urban Families, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Zamarro, Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Teacher Quality, teaches empirical methods and education economics as it relates to teacher quality and teacher labor markets. She previously worked as a senior economist at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, an economist at the RAND Corporation, a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy and an assistant professor in the Department of Econometrics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Her research is motivated by policy-relevant questions and the use of rigorous methods to help inform policy, with a focus on education policy. She has studied the relationship between teacher quality and student performance, teacher recruitment and retention issues, the gender and educational effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of school closing policies on student outcomes and the effect of dual-language immersion programs on student outcomes, among other topics. Her work has been featured numerous times in the American and Spanish media and has helped inform policy at the state, national and international levels.