Top rankings
- Graduate programs in elementary and secondary education have ranked No. 1 in the nation for 15 consecutive years, according to the U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate schools for 2010.
- The College of Education ranks 17th overall nationally (2010 U.S. News & World Report rankings), with a total of seven graduate study areas among the top eight, including: rehabilitation counseling, No. 1; curriculum and instruction, No. 2; higher education administration, No. 4; educational psychology, No. 5; and administration and supervision, No. 8.
- The doctoral program in mathematics education, offered jointly with the College of Natural Science, was ranked No. 2 in a national survey of peer institutions by the American Mathematical Society in 2007.
- The November/December 2007 issue of the George Lucas Educational Foundation magazine, Edutopia, named MSU among the top 10 most effective and innovative schools of education.
Teacher preparation and academics
- MSU was one of the first institutions to require students to complete a full-year internship in a K–12 school before receiving their teacher certification—a model for teacher preparation today.
- Incoming students can specialize in the urban educators and global educators cohort programs—courses and learning opportunities designed to prepare teachers specifically for inner-city and multicultural settings.
- The College of Education was one of the first to offer an online master’s degree program in education. Four master’s programs are now offered completely online.
Research
- Sixty percent of faculty members in the College of Education serve as principal or coprincipal investigators on funded research projects, with annual research valued at $18.3 million. The total of full multiyear grants exceeds $96 million.
- Michigan State is home to the Literacy Achievement Research Center, the nation’s largest center of this type with more than 25 researchers and 45 research assistants studying dozens of multidisciplinary topics.
- Sixty school districts and 300,000 students have participated in the $35 million Promoting Rigorous Outcomes in Mathematics and Science Education—or PROM/SE—project led by faculty from the Colleges of Education and Natural Science. This research and development effort to improve math and science education builds on the 1995 results of the U.S. portion of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, also based at MSU.
- The National Science Foundation supports four MSU faculty members conducting math and science education research through Faculty Early Career Development Program grants totaling nearly $2 million.
- Six College of Education graduate students have earned Fulbright-Hays fellowships to support doctoral dissertation research abroad in the past six years; four have received dissertation fellowships from the Spencer Foundation.
Outreach
- Leaders in the College of Education established MSU as the first U.S. hub for iNet, the International Networking for Educational Transformation, which currently links more than 5,000 schools in 40 countries with online and face-to-face resources such as forums, workshops, and study tours.
- The Detroit-based Skillman Foundation selected the College of Education to direct its Good Schools Resource Center, which works to increase the number of high-performing schools in Detroit by sharing research-based best practices.
- The Confucius Institute at MSU was named a Confucius Institute of the Year among peers worldwide in 2007 and 2008 by Chinese Language Council International, also known as Hanban, for providing exemplary opportunities to learn Chinese language and culture. The institute is the only one of its kind offering online Chinese language courses; the online ZON video game that teaches Chinese culture and language was developed by the institute’s director, Yong Zhao.
- Through the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence, MSU has assisted in opening five Chinese–English language immersion schools that blend Eastern and Western teaching styles.
