U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will speak at a swearing-in ceremony for new and re-appointed members of the National Assessment Governing Board in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Nov. 21 at 2 p.m. ET. The board oversees the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), known to many as the Nation's Report Card.
The appointees set policy for NAEP, which makes objective information on student performance available to policymakers and the public at the national, state and local levels for nearly a dozen subjects. NAEP has served an important role in evaluating the condition and progress of American education since 1969. The 26-member governing board—a group of governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators and researchers, business representatives and members of the general public—determines subjects and content to be tested, sets the achievement levels for reporting and releases the results to the public.
The new and reappointed board members are Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell Chester; fourth-grade teacher Shannon Garrison from Los Angeles; secondary school principal Frank Fernandes from Honolulu; Detroit resident Tonya Matthews; and eighth-grade teacher Chasidy White from Brookwood, Alabama.