FairTest Staff and Board

Monty Neill, Ed.D

Monty Neill, Ed.D., Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), has led FairTest's work on testing in the public schools since 1987. He has initiated national and state coalitions of education, civil rights, religious, disability and parent organizations to work toward fundamental change in the assessment of students and in accountability. He chairs the national Forum on Educational Accountability. Under his leadership, FairTest has collaborated on testing reform efforts with organizations in many states. Among dozens of publications, he is lead author of Failing Our Children; Implementing Performance Assessments: A Guide to Classroom School and System Reform; and Testing Our Children: A Report Card on State Assessment Systems. He led the National Forum on Assessment in developing Principles and Indicators for Student Assessment Systems. He earned a Doctorate at Harvard University with his dissertation The Struggle of Boston's Black Community for Quality and Equality in Education: 1960-1985. He has taught and been an administrator in pre-school, high school and college, and he is a grandfather of three children in the public schools.

Robert Schaeffer

Robert A. (Bob) Schaeffer has served as Public Education Director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, since its founding in 1985, and is a member of its Board of Directors. Previously, Mr. he was Editorial Writer at the NBC-TV affiliate in Boston, Research Director of the Massachusetts Legislature's Joint Committee on Human Services and Elderly Affairs, and worked for several years as a research associate at the Education Research Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was both an undergraduate and graduate student. He is author of Standardized Tests and Teacher Competence (School Voices, Fall, 1996) and coauthor of Standing Up to the SAT (ARCO/Simon & Schuster, 1989). He has also coauthored many FairTest publications, including Testing Our Children: A Report Card on State Assessment Systems, Standardized Tests and Our Children: A Guide to Testing Reform, Implementing Performance Assessments, The SAT Coaching Cover-Up, Test Scores Do Not Equal Merit, and Sex Bias in College Admissions Tests: How Women Lose Out.

Lisa Guisbond

Lisa Guisbond is Assessment Reform Analyst at the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) in Cambridge, MA. After many years as a writer and editor, Lisa Guisbond became interested in education policy as a public school parent with an interest in special education. She is Vice President of Citizens for Public Schools and is the principal author of NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from this Policy Failure? and the Campaign for the Education of the Whole Child. She co-authored Failing Our Children: How 'No Child Left Behind' Undermines Quality and Equity in Education. Her writing on education and assessment has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Education Week, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA Today and The New York Times. She served on the MCAS and Assessment subcommittee of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's Readiness Project.

David Mirabella

David Mirabella works as the Office Manager and Program Associate at FairTest. David has been with FairTest since the year 2000. He also maintains FairTest's web site, design and desktop publishing needs, as well as day to day office operations.

FAIRTEST BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dr. Sophie Sa, Chair; Founding Executive Director (retired), Panasonic Foundation, Secaucus, NJ

Judith Browne-Dianis, Esq., Vice-Chair; Co-Director, Advancement Project, Washington, DC

Laura Barrett, Clerk; Communications Specialist, Massachusetts Teachers Association,Boston, MA

Betty Rauch, Treasurer; Board Chair, The Fortune Society, New York, NY; Principal, Betty P Rauch Marketing/Communications

Dr. Mary Lu Bilek; Dean and Professor of Law, University of Massachusetts School of Law, Dartmouth, MA

Ann Cook; Executive Director, NY Standards Performance Consortium, New York, NY

Dr. Ellen Condliffe Lagemann; Levy Institute Research Professor, Bard College, and Distinguished Fellow, Bard Prison Initiative, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Deborah Meier; Founding principal, Central Park East (NYC) and Mission Hill (Boston) schools, Hillsdale, NY; Professor, New York University

George Rosenfeld; History Professor, Bard Prison Initiative, New York, NY

Nikhil Goyal; Author, Student

Angela Valenzuela; Professor, U-Texas, Austin

Linda Nathan; Executive Director, Center for Arts in Education

Robert Schaeffer; President, Public Policy Communications, Sanibel, FL

National Policy Panel

Dr. Leonard Beckum, Duke University
Dr. Beverly Cole, CRESPAR
Dr. Harold Dent, Association of Black Psychologists
Henry Der, California Department of Education
Arnold Fege, Consultant
Norm Fruchter, New York University
Dr. Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Dr. Lucinda Lee Katz, Univeristy of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Jonathan Kozol, Author
Hayes Mizell, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
Aurelio Montemayor, Intercultural Development Research Association
Harry Pachon, Tomas Rivera Center
AIfredo de los Santos, Maricopa Community Colleges
Cinthia Schuman, Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, The Aspen Institute
Eleanor Smeal, Fund For a Feminist Majority
Dr. Gail Thomas, Texas A&M University
Ron Vera, Attorney
John Weiss, Publisher, Colorado Springs Independent, Colorado Springs, CO