It feels rather trivial considering the current state of the world, but it’s time again to post our mostly-annual list of the top education policy people, organizations, and publications on social media. (We skipped the exercise last year and don’t want to do that again.)

The first step is to make sure our universe of contenders is accurate. To that end, Anthony Nguyen, my communications associate at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, searched far and wide to compile a big list of people and organizations that might vie for this year’s honors. Check it out here.

Despite our best efforts, we always overlook handles that should be included, so PLEASE take a gander and let us know if we forgot to add you or someone you know. I want to be careful not to overlook any people of color. Email Anthony at anguyen-at-edexcellence.net.

I plan to limit the lists to the top 30 or so (people and organizations), ranked both by much-derided but better-than-nothing Klout scores, and by the number of Twitter followers. At this point it looks like handles will need to have Klout scores in the mid-60s and at least 25,000-plus followers in order to be in contention.

Note that some of the people and organizations in Anthony’s spreadsheet will drop off because they don’t comment much about education policy. I’m all for folks tweeting about lesson plans and such but there are already good lists about that; this is my list and I want it to focus on the education policy debate!

— Mike Petrilli

Mike Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and executive editor of Education Next.