David Driscoll, a former Massachusetts commissioner of education, has been named the new chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, the independent panel that sets policy for the test known as the “nation’s report card.” Driscoll was named to the position by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who also appointed five members to the board, which oversees much of the crucial behind-the-scenes work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.
The former Massachusetts schools leader, who was already a board member, takes over for Darvin Winick, who is scheduled to remain on board until his term ends in 2010, according to NAGB. The secretary also named five others to the panel: Alan J. Friedman, a science education consultant and current board member, who was reappointed; Doris Hicks, the principal and CEO of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology in New Orleans; Tonya Miles, the chief departmental administrator in the office of the general counsel for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and a former member of the Maryland State Board of Education; W. James Popham, a testing and measuring expert from Oregon and a professor emeritus of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Leticia Van de Putte, a five-term state senator from Texas.
They bring varied experience, to say the least. Hicks, for instance, took a major role in bringing her high school back to life after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was the first public school to reopen in the city’s severely damaged Lower Ninth Ward. See my colleague Lesli Maxwell’s coverage on the school for EdWeek here.
Photo of Driscoll from NAGB.