Kellogg Institute faculty fellow Mark Berends is one of three University of Notre Dame faculty members named to the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. This prestigious annual list recognizes the 200 scholars whose academic work has most influenced educational practice and policy nationwide.
This is Berends' seventh appearance on the annual list, recognizing him for his impactful research on school effectiveness and education policy. He is a professor in the Department of Sociology and a faculty fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiative’s Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO).
Berends has written and published extensively on educational reform, school choice, the effects of family and school changes on student achievement trends, and the effects of schools and classrooms on student achievement and attainment. His research focuses on how school organization and classroom instruction are related to student outcomes, with special attention to historically marginalized students and school reforms aimed at improving their educational opportunities. Currently, he is conducting several studies on school choice, including an examination of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program.
He is a member of the National Academy of Education and an AERA fellow. At Notre Dame, he has served as the director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), Associate Vice President for Research, Director of the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity, and founding director of Notre Dame’s Program for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (PIER).
“It’s an honor to be selected with this incredible group of scholars, many of whom I have looked up to for years,” said Berends. “Having research recognized for its impact on policy and practice provides additional motivation to find new ways to make it happen.”
Other Notre Dame faculty members named to the list are Ernest Morrell and Jeffrey Denning. The full list of rankings can be found on Education Week.
This article is adapted from the original posted to iei.nd.edu.