Gregory Cizek, the Guy B. Phillips Professor of Educational Measurement and Evaluation, has been named chair of a committee of the National Assessment Governing Board, a panel that helps set policies guiding the use of data to evaluate school performance.
Cizek, who was appointed to the NAGB in 2017, has been named chair of the board’s Committee on Standards, Design, and Methodology. As committee chair, Cizek also becomes a member of the Executive Committee of the NAGB.
The NAGB, working with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, sets policies for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is also known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
The Committee on Standards, Design, and Methodology is responsible for all NAEP technical matters, such as achievement level setting and sampling issues for the NAEP assessments.
An expert on applied assessment
Cizek has worked for more than 25 years in the field of applied assessment with specializations in standard setting, validity and test security and has served as president of the National Council on Measurement in Education. At Carolina, Cizek teaches courses in applied psychometrics, statistics, program evaluation and research methods. His scholarly interests include standard setting, testing policy, classroom assessment and cheating on tests.
His most recent book, “Validity,” explores the two most fundamental aspects of defensible testing practice: the evidence that must get gathered to support the intended meaning of a test score, and the evidence necessary for justifying the use of a test for some intended purpose.
The book is intended for use in graduate courses on assessment, testing, psychometrics, and research methods as well as for credentialing organizations, licensure and certification entities, education agencies, and test publishers.
Cizek’s work is informed by a background that includes five years of teaching at the elementary and middle school levels in Michigan and service as a vice president of a local board of education in Ohio.
Prior to coming to Carolina in 1999, Cizek managed national licensure and certification testing programs for American College Testing, served as a test development specialist for a statewide assessment program, taught educational research and management at the University of Toledo and graduate-level statistics courses at Michigan State University, where he had earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.
Evaluating progress of American education
NAEP offers to the public and to education policymakers at the national, state and local levels, objective data on student performance in nearly a dozen subjects. The information NAEP provides helps education stakeholders evaluate the progress of American education, the department said.
The 26-member nonpartisan, independent Governing Board determines the subjects and content of NAEP tests, sets the achievement levels for reporting and publicly releases the results.
Cizek’s term as chair of the committee runs through the Fall of 2021. His appointment was made by the chair of the NAGB, Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi.