ANN ARBOR—Jeffrey Mirel, the David L. Angus Collegiate Chair at the University of Michigan School of Education and a professor of history, has been elected to the National Academy of Education.

Mirel, who also is a faculty associate in the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and in the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, is one of 12 education leaders nationwide to receive honors from the academy for contributions to educational research and policy development. Also selected was School of Education alumna Anna Neumann, professor of higher education and director of Teachers College’s Program in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Columbia University.

“This is certainly a fitting achievement for Dr. Mirel,” said Deborah Ball, dean of the School of Education.”To be elected to the National Academy of Education is among the highest honors for a faculty member in our field, and Jeff has certainly earned this distinction from his peers. I join Jeff’s colleagues in offering him sincere congratulations.”

Mirel’s research lies in the areas of history and politics of urban education and the history of school reform, particularly high school reform.

He has written or co-written several books, including “The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit 1907-81,” for which he won the 1995 Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association and the 1995-96 Outstanding Book Award of the History of Education Society.

He is co-author of “The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995,” which was published in 1999. His most recent book, “Patriotic Pluralism: Americanization Education and European Immigrants,” was published in 2010. It shows evidence of the influence immigrants had on Americanization, long thought to be something that was forced upon immigrants by the educational system.

Mirel has a doctorate from U-M. He was formerly a professor of education at Northern Illinois University and Emory University, where he was also director of the Division of Educational Studies.

Founded in 1965, the National Academy of Education consists of U.S. members and foreign associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education. In addition to serving on expert study panels that address pressing issues in education, members engage in professional development programs such as the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Program.