One of the nation’s foremost experts on the politics and policies of educational reform has received an honor befitting her status.
Carolyn Herrington, a professor of educational policy in Florida State University’s College of Education, has been named co-editor of the scholarly journal Educational Researcher for the 2013-2015 volume years. The journal is considered the world’s most important publication for educational research and has the highest impact factor, meaning its articles are cited by researchers in the field more often than those of any other journal. As a rough measure of the prestige with which it is regarded, Educational Researcher’s peer publications in other disciplines would include Science, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine.
“It’s both a tremendous honor and a major responsibility to be entrusted with helping to produce the journal that is so central to my academic field,” said Herrington, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. She added that the decisions made by the new editorial team, which includes co-editor Vivian Gadsden of the University of Pennsylvania and four associate editors, will have a very real impact on educational policy and educational reform throughout the nation.
“The central place that education holds in the aspirations of communities and nations has never been so strong,” she said. “Research is fundamental to achieving those aspirations. As such, there is a growing appetite for research and its findings among policymakers and the general public.Educational Researcher plays a central role in providing quality research to researchers and to the larger public; it has the potential to broaden its reach even more. We look forward to making that happen.”
Herrington isn’t the only Florida State faculty member who will be serving on Educational Researcher’s new editorial team. Associate Professor David W. Eccles of the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems will serve as an associate editor for the same three-year period. Eccles’ research focuses on the cognition underlying skilled and expert performance in real-world domains, including law enforcement, medicine, sports, education, personal finance and the military.
“We congratulate Dr. Herrington and Dr. Eccles for having been named as editors of Educational Researcher for 2013-2015,” said Pamela S. Carroll, associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Education. “Their selections to perhaps the most significant journal in educational research reflects not only the quality of work for which Dr. Herrington and Dr. Eccles are recognized but also the quality of scholarship that is characteristic of faculty across the college.”
At FSU, Herrington’s teaching and research focus on the politics and policies of educational reform with a particular emphasis on the role of the state. She has examined accountability, educational financing, school choice and comprehensive children’s services, among other major topics in the field.
A prolific writer, Herrington has more than 50 academic articles, chapters and policy reports to her name. In addition, her research has been funded by such prestigious institutions as the Carnegie Cooperation of New York, the BellSouth Foundation, the Jesse Ball DuPont Fund, the Wallace deWitt Fund, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, the Institute of Educational Sciences, the Florida Institute of Education, the Florida Legislature, the Florida Board of Regents and the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Herrington and Eccles are among at least 60 Florida State faculty members who currently serve as editors or editorial board members of peer-reviewed journals within their academic disciplines.