University of Southern California Rossier School of Education Pulls Out of Education-School Rankings, Citing Data Errors

Melissa Korn:

USC Provost Charles F. Zukoski told students and staff at the Rossier School of Education in a letter Wednesday that the school’s dean, Pedro A. Noguera, notified him recently of “a history of inaccuracies in the survey data.”  A school representative declined to comment beyond the letter.

Dr. Zukoski said the school pulled itself from a set of graduate-school rankings that was set to be released in coming days “while we seek to understand the situation further.”

A faculty member familiar with the investigation said the probe is related to whether the school included information about the correct groups of graduate students in its rankings submission. The person said faculty at the education school expressed concern a few years ago about proposed changes to that set of data, which could have artificially inflated average GRE scores.

USC tied at No. 11 in the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of graduate education schools, released last year. “We rely on schools to accurately report their data and ask academic officials to verify that data,” said Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News & World Report.

USC hired law firm Jones Day to conduct a review of its submissions for the rankings. They interviewed multiple staff and faculty members in recent weeks, according to the faculty member familiar with the investigation.

Dr. Zukoski said USC will release findings from the Jones Day investigation when it is complete, which he expects would happen in the next two weeks. He said the school has already notified the U.S. Education Department and its accreditor of the data inaccuracies.

Rossier’s erroneous U.S. News & World Report submissions are the latest in a string of controversies over college rankings, and highlight the ease with which schools can provide faulty data, accidentally or otherwise.