Susan A. Gendron, Maine’s commissioner of education is leaving her job. Word is that she’s going to help lead one of the groups, or “consortia,” of states that have formed to get Race to the Top money to design new assessment systems.
The news left one state lawmaker lamenting that Gendron wouldn’t be around to help the state win money in the second round of the main (no pun intended) Race to the Top competition. She’s also led a move there to consolidate school districts, and some regretted that she was leaving that work as well.
Gendron knows more than a little about common assessments; with three other states, Maine is part of the New England Common Assessment Program. She is also just finishing a term as president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which is co-leading the initiative to design common standards (with which common assessments are supposed to be aligned).
More about how the assessment consortia are evolving, and what they’re planning to do, is over at Curriculum Matters.
