Dr. Pascal D. Forgione Jr. to Head New Center at ETS

Center to provide valuable guidance to national, state and local educators

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Princeton, N.J. (March 11, 2009) —

Nationally recognized educator Pascal (Pat) D. Forgione Jr., superintendent of the Austin Independent School District (AISD) since 1999, will be joining Educational Testing Service (ETS), company officials announced today. Forgione will serve as a Distinguished Presidential Scholar and Executive Director of a new Center on K–12 Assessment and Performance Management. This new position at ETS will focus on social responsibility, equity, opportunity and quality in its research and development work to advance the field of educational testing and data management in public and private school systems. Forgione will join ETS in July.

The Center will foster the improvement of assessment and performance management methodologies, technologies, policies and practices through useful, timely and high-quality guidance and scholarship. Forgione and his staff also will conduct periodic surveys to identify timely and policy-relevant issues and topics in assessment and will issue regular reports on developments in K–12 assessment.

“We’re extremely pleased to have a nationally recognized educator and innovator of Pat’s caliber join us,” says ETS president and CEO Kurt Landgraf. “His distinguished career has spanned three decades in the areas of assessment and management in public school systems. He will draw upon the expertise and databases of our longstanding and highly regarded research and development and testing programs at ETS. In addition, through regular symposia, special meetings and university-based networks and partnerships, he will secure the advice of the best thinkers and leaders in educational measurement and education both nationally and internationally. He will be the embodiment of ETS’s social mission of advancing quality and equity in education.”

“I look forward to tapping into the resources of ETS as well as national, state and local education policymakers and school boards, teachers and administrators for designing, developing and implementing new systems of assessment and performance management,” Forgione says. “The Center will exhibit a passion and presence for improving the fairness, quality, usefulness, accuracy and timeliness of assessment and performance management data of and for student learning.”

Over time, ETS officials expect the Center will become a valued resource for national, state and local policymakers and school leaders in challenging poor and unacceptable practices and in identifying new approaches to assessment and performance management. This work will be instrumental in guiding the important education reform work under way that is aimed at improving the performance and development of students, schools and systems of education in the United States and internationally.

While serving as superintendent of the AISD — a complex urban school district comprising 83,000 students — Forgione spearheaded many innovative programs designed to improve academic achievement by successfully advancing high-quality systems of standards and assessments.

Prior to heading the AISD, Forgione held leadership positions in other assessment and management programs at the national and state levels. From 1979 to 1991, he oversaw Connecticut’s statewide student and teacher assessment programs, as well as the evaluation of the state’s major state and federal compensatory programs. Forgione also served as U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics under Secretary of Education Richard Riley. From 1996 to 1999, he headed the National Center for Education Statistics in Washington, D.C., which collects, analyzes and disseminates data on all levels of education in the United States, conducts studies on international comparisons of education statistics, and develops the use of standardized terminology and definitions for the collection of those statistics.

About ETS

At nonprofit ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests, the GRE® test and The Praxis Series™ assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide.