Thursday, September 13, 2012

Wilmington, NC- Parents, educators and students who are interested in the future of educational assessment are invited to participate and share their thoughts during two public forums on the future of assessment in education held by the Gordon Commission at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The Gordon Commission was established by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), as an independent commission, to investigate and advise on the nature and use of educational testing in the 21^st century. The panel will feature members of the Gordon Commission, including commission chair Professor Edmund W. Gordon.

The commission has a three-fold mission of studying the best current educational assessment practices and technologies, considering the changing face of education in the 21st century and generating recommendations on how to design assessment strategies for the next quarter century and beyond.

The forum will address the questions of a diverse range of stakeholders:

Educators: From your unique perspective, what do educators need from assessment, and how can testing be used to improve teaching and learning?

Parents: What do parents want and need from assessment in education?

Students: What do you seek from educational assessment and testing? What troubles you about contemporary testing practices?

Participants who choose to present a brief to the Gordon Commission are asked to submit their statements to the commission at http://www.gordoncommission.org/events.html. Statements received in advance and in writing will be given priority. Participants who choose to speak without prior submission are invited to register at the hearing and present briefs in writing immediately following their three-minute presentation. Time may be arranged for long statements upon request but no statement will be provided with more than six minutes for oral presentation.

The forums will be held in the Watson College of Education Building, room 162, on the UNCW campus on Wed., Sept. 26 and Thurs. Sept. 27 from 6 to 9 p.m. The event is open to the public, and free parking will be available in Lot I adjacent to the Education Building. For more information, see the campus map at www.uncw.edu/map.

For more information about the work of the Gordon Commission or questions about where to submit comments, visit www.gordoncommission.org.

Media Contact:
William Davis, UNCW University Relations, 910-962-2654 or davisw@uncw.edu

 

Commission Members

The Commission members are outstanding leaders from the fields of education sciences, psychometrics and public policy. They have joined together to produce a vision for fair and beneficial educational assessment for the 21^st century.
www.gordoncommission.org/who_we_are.html

Dr. Edmund W. Gordon
John M. Musser Professor of Psychology-Emeritus, Yale University, the Richard March Hoe Professor of Psychology and Education-Emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University and the founding director of the Institute of Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Gordon has authored 18 books and over 200 articles, was influential in the establishment of Head Start and the compensatory and supplemental education movements. He is a leading African American psychologist and one of America's most prolific and thoughtful scholars, recognized as a preeminent member of his discipline and profession. An elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the American Association for Orthopsychiatry, Fellow and Life Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an elected member of the National Academy of Education.