Social Science Research Institute

Penn State professor named among most influential in shaping education

Erica Frankenberg was recently named to the 2022 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings for the seventh year in a row. Credit: Steve Tressler. All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Erica Frankenberg, professor of education (educational leadership) and demography at Penn State and director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights, was recently named to the 2022 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings list of top 200 U.S.-based university scholars who influence education policy and practice. Frankenberg has been on the list every year since 2015.

The rankings, published in Education Week, list the university-based scholars in the United States who are identified as doing the most to shape educational practice and policy.

Frankenberg, who also is a Population Research Institute associate, is frequently featured in the media for her research on racial desegregation and inequality in K-12 schools, the connections between school segregation and other metropolitan policies, the extent of school segregation today, and the connection between school and housing segregation.

“I’m very honored to be recognized in the top 200 once again this year,” said Frankenberg. “It is my goal to make sure educational research findings are accessible and can be communicated to different audiences, especially those who help shape policies to be more equitable.”

Her work informs stories published by national news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS News Hour, Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, PolitiFact and 1A, among others. She also has been a guest on talk radio programs to talk about school segregation and why it matters.

Additionally, a book Frankenberg co-edited, “The Resegregation of Suburban Schools,” was named influential in a recent year-end column in The New York Times.

According to the RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings website, there are more than 20,000 university-based faculty who work in K-12 education in the U.S. The rankings, published in Education Week, list the university-based scholars in the United States who are identified as doing the most to shape educational practice and policy. Information about the scoring process can be found on the Education Week website.

For more information about Frankenberg's work, visit the Center for Education and Civil Rights website

Last Updated January 14, 2022

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