October  2020

On October 9, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) announced the appointment of five members for the 2020–24 term. The appointees, made by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos,  included Suzanne Lane, a former vice president of AERA’s Division D—Measurement and Research Methodologies, an AERA Fellow, and past president of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). Lane will serve as a testing and measurement expert on NAGB.

NAGB is an independent, nonpartisan board that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and is responsible for communicating results of the NAEP tests. Lane, a professor in the research methodology program at the University of Pittsburgh, will take over the testing and measurement role previously held by Andrew Ho, Charles William Eliot Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who recently completed his second term of service on NAGB.

“NAGB could not do better than having Lane succeed Ho; she is, too, a quality scientist and citizen,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “We could not be more pleased to see Suzanne receive this opportunity to apply her expertise and leadership in guiding policy for the nation’s gold standard in assessment.”

Lane recently served on a committee convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that produced the consensus report Evaluation of the Achievement Levels for Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In addition, she served on the management committee for the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, a collaborative project of AERA, the American Psychological Association, and NCME.

In addition to Lane, the following individuals were appointed:

• Julia Rafal-Baer, chief operating officer of Chiefs for Change, who will serve as a general public representative. Rafal-Baer has a research and policy background, and recently was a member of AERA Division L.
• Alice Peisch, who will serve a second term as the Democratic state legislator on NAGB. Peisch is a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and co-chairs the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Committee on Education.
• Ron Reynolds, executive director of the California Association of Private School Organizations, who will serve as one of the board’s non-public school administrators or policymakers.
• Mark White, who will serve as the Republican state legislator on NAGB. White is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and chairs the Tennessee House Education Committee.

Terms for all appointees began on October 1 and run through September 30, 2024.