The 2003 U.S. News and World Reports rankings of graduate schools of education placed TC fourth, tied with Vanderbilt's Peabody College, with a combined score of 90. The magazine ranked Harved Education School first, Stanford second, and UCLA's School of Education third. Every year U.S. News ranks graduate programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine. The rankings are based on expert opinion about program quality, as well as statistics that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, and students. In specific programs, TC was ranked third in Curriculum/ Instruction, fourth in Elementary Education, fifth in Secondary Education, eighth in Educational Psychology, seventh in Administration/Supervision, fourth in Education Policy, and ninth in Higher Education Administration.

Scott Schnackenberg, TC's Director of Institutional Studies, said, "The TC data is very similar to last year (actually slightly better on most items), but we continue to be weaker than most of the other top schools in faculty funded research, which accounts for 30 percent of the ranking. While the gross amount of funded research at TC is actually slightly more than at the other top schools, our "per capita" figures (the amount of funded research per faculty member) is lower than any other school in the top seven. As has been the case the past two years, the rankings are 'research' rankings, and as such favor schools whose primary mission is research --as opposed to those, say, that are heavily concerned with teacher education."

Published Monday, Apr. 7, 2003