Economist ranked among most influential education scholars

Steven Rivkin, professor and head of economics, was honored for helping shape public discussions of education last year. Photo: Joshua Clark/UIC Photo Services

UIC economist Steven Rivkin is one of the 200 most influential education scholars in the U.S., according to an annual ranking in Education Week.

Rivkin, professor and head of economics, was honored for helping shape public discussions of education last year.

He is listed 134th on the 2015 Frederick Hess Edu-Scholar Public Influence Ranking. Hess, an Education Week blogger and the American Enterprise Institute’s director of educational policy studies, spotlights university-based scholars who move ideas from academic journals into the national conversation.

The ranking of public influence is based on several factors, including Google Scholar Score — the number of widely cited articles, books and papers a scholar has produced — and total mentions in the news media.

Rivkin, who joined the UIC faculty as department head in 2012, studies the economics of education, labor economics and public finance. He has written about teacher quality, the benefits of smaller classes and the effectiveness of charter schools.