It’s August, which means it’s time for my annual list of top Twitter feeds in education policy. (See last year’s here.)
Creating the rankings is an imperfect science for three reasons. First, there’s a great risk that I will overlook worthy contenders because they aren’t in my network. I’ve been rightly criticized for this in the past.
Second, many people hate the metric I use, which is Klout scores.
And third, it’s always a difficult judgement call about whom to include. I want the list focused on education policy, largely to keep the universe manageable. That means excluding folks who are mostly tweeting about teaching, or parenting, or education technology, or other related-but-not-quite-on-target topics.
To deal with these challenges, I’m trying a new process this year, which goes like this:
1. My fantastic intern Kate Stringer and I created a list of 400-plus people and organizations who tweet about education policy. Let Kate know by Monday morning if we’ve overlooked you or anyone else. (Email her at Kstringer (at) edexcellence.net.)
2. On Monday, Kate will laboriously compile Klout scores and the number of Twitter followers for everyone on the list. We’ll then do the rankings two ways—by Klout and by followers. (If you have a suggestion besides Klout, let us know.)
3. I reserve the right to winnow the finalists further if someone pops up who mostly tweets about something other than education policy.
There you have it. So take a look at the list we’ve got so far, let us know if we’re missing anyone, and get those Klout scores up over the weekend!
– Mike Petrilli
