The Neag School of Education continued its dominance as the No. 1 public school of education in the Northeast, according to the 2011 annual review of the best U.S. graduate schools announced in April by the U.S. News and World Report.

U.S. News ranked the Neag School 31^st among 279 private and public education schools surveyed. In specialty rankings nationwide, Neag placed 18th in Elementary Education and 15th in Special Education.

Neag Dean Thomas C. DeFranco said he was very proud of the newest rankings. “The rankings are a testament to the high quality of our programs, the caliber of our students and the productivity of our faculty,” he said.

“As we look to ways for our rankings to climb, we will need to focus our attention on increased grant productivity. For example, last year we reported an average of $200,000 per faculty member in funded research, while the average of the top 20 schools was $370,000 per faculty member,” DeFranco observed.

Each year, U.S. News gathers two types of data: expert opinions from program directors, senior faculty, school superintendents and deans to rank professional school programs, and statistical indicators supplied by each school to measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. The results are based on fall 2009 surveys of more than 1,200 programs and about 12,400 academics and professionals.