Last week, Fairbanks North Star Borough School District social media accounts touted that Superintendent Luke Meinert has been “named one of the nation’s Top 10 School District Superintendents for 2025 by Education Insider.”  The Facebook post received over 300 “likes” and was shared numerous times, including by Senator Löki Tobin (D – Anchorage) and the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. 

There are over 19,000 school districts in the United States , so it would be truly stupendous if Fairbanks was blessed with a superintendent evaluated as among the top 10 (top 0.05 percent!) in the country by a legitimate education organization. However, when I checked the Education Insider website, I noticed a few anomalies.

Nowhere can one find the number of subscribers to this web magazine. There is no information regarding the nomination process, the evaluation process, or the qualifications of the people who determine their “Leader Awards“. Examining the digital “issue” that features the superintendent, one finds that the editorial staff for Education Insider consists of only seven people, making it all the more impressive that they were able to scour our vast country to find not only the Top 10 School Superintendents, but six other categories of Top 10 education executives.

A small but key point worth noting is that nowhere on the website (likely for obvious legal reasons) does it say for what group the awardees are in the Top 10. The “one of the nation’s” part of “one of the nation’s Top 10” was added by the school district in its press release; this is not an accidental staff error given that Dr. Meinert reposted the press release on his personal Instagram account. Not surprisingly, my email and phone queries of Education Insider regarding their award selection procedures have gone unanswered. The parent company of Education Insider, ValleyMedia, Inc., is based in Fort Lauderdale. Other web “magazines” share the same physical address, each with their own Top 10 lists, including such prestigious titles as Semiconductor Review, Auto Business Outlook, Insurance Business Review, and Utilities Business Review.

In short, the evidence is compelling that Superintendent Meinert solicited from a vanity press an “award” that has no more importance than a “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee mug, and he then used school district resources to mischaracterize its significance and publicize it. If true, then to me this is the moral equivalent of lying about a key component of one’s resume and could be grounds for dismissal. We certainly need to hear Dr. Meinert’s side of the story. I implore the Fairbanks North Star Borough to conduct an independent investigation, starting with examination of all communications between school district employees and Education Insider.

Robert Herrick is a research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was a Parent Representative on the FNSBSD Budget Committee during the 2022-2024 academic years. His views are his own and not representative of his employer or any other organization to which he belongs.