October 2025

On September 30, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced appointments to the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), including the reappointment of AERA member Scott Marion, principal learning associate at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment. Marion will continue to serve on NAGB as a testing and measurement expert for a second four-year term.

NAGB is the independent, nonpartisan board that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and is responsible for communicating results of the NAEP tests. The board’s 26 members include testing and measurement experts, policymakers evenly divided by political party, and education practitioners, as mandated by Congress.

McMahon also announced two new appointments:

• Kymyona Burk, senior policy fellow of early literacy at the Foundation for Excellence in Education and visiting senior fellow at the State University of New York’s New Paltz Science of Reading Center, will serve as a general public representative.
• Michael Sidebotham, principal of Grafton Village Elementary School in Fredericksburg, Va., will serve in the elementary principal role.

Additionally, Mark White, Tennessee state representative, was selected as NAGB chair, and Martin West, academic dean and Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, will continue as vice chair.