91����Ƶ

NAEd members are elected based on outstanding scholarship or leadership related to education. Briggs and Welner join a group of just 22 national and international colleagues elected to the Academy this year.

“I am delighted that two of our 91����Ƶ Boulder colleagues have been recognized among the highest honors in education," said Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, interim dean for the School of Education.��

Joe Polman, associate dean of research, added: “Drs. Briggs and Welner are leading experts in their areas of study who continue to push our understanding of the impact of educational policies and practices—from the meticulous work that Dr. Briggs uses to scrutinize methodological approaches to evaluating student growth to Dr. Welner’s creative and determined focus on bringing high-quality research to bear on closing opportunity gaps.����

“We know they will be invaluable contributors to the Academy.”��

Briggs is a professor in the Research Evaluation and Methodology program, where he is also the director and founder of the Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation (CADRE). He joined the faculty at 91����Ƶ Boulder in 2003, and his research focuses on advancing methods for the sound measurement of student learning and for evaluating the effects of educational interventions on student achievement.������

As a nationally renowned psychometrician, or someone who studies the measurement of students’ knowledge and abilities, and CADRE director, Briggs works with states and education leaders to provide technical advice on the design and use of large-scale student assessments. He is also an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow and past president of the National Council on Measurement in Education.��

“Prof. Derek Briggs is among the foremost leaders in the measurement field today,” said nominator Edward Haertal, professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who agreed to share his perspective. “He is an enormously talented, multifaceted scholar engaging fundamental issues in measurement, identifying questionable practices and assumptions and pointing the way toward solutions...His election would add luster to our Academy.”��

Welner is the director of the and is a research professor in the Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice program in the School of Education, where he has been on the faculty for 25 years. Welner has written and published extensively on opportunity gaps, educational reform, charter schools, private-school vouchers, ability grouping, school finance, and the area of interplay between education policy and the law. He is a former practicing attorney and the co-author of textbooks used in law schools and schools of education to teach education law. He is an AERA Fellow as well as a Senior Fellow of the . He is also chair of the Board of Trustees of the .��

“Professor Kevin Welner’s research contributions are unique in combining careful policy analysis on the use of the law in education with empirical social science analysis,” Polman added. “He is also one of the most skilled public communicators of education policy research in our field. Through their hugely influential work, he and his colleagues have literally changed misguided conversations in this country about ‘achievement gaps' into more productive efforts to identify and address educational 'opportunity gaps.’”��

Briggs and Welner join four 91����Ƶ Boulder colleagues who are also members of NAEd: Rubén Donato, Margaret Eisenhart, Bill Penuel and Lorrie Shepard, who is a former NAEd president.��

Carol Lee, current NAEd president, welcomed members to the Academy , adding they will join peers in making an indelible impact on education scholarship.��

“Education, broadly conceived, is foundational to preparing students across ages to navigate the complexities of our democratic experiment in governance, the increased interdependence of our modern world, productive workforce participation, and their personal development as humans,” she said.����

“Our distinguished colleagues now joining the National Academy of Education bring the range of expertise and commitments needed for our field to update itself and wrestle with these complexities continuously.”����

Founded in 1965, NAEd is an honorific society that “advances high quality education research and its use in policy and practice.” Members serve on expert study panels that address pressing issues in education, and they engage in professional development fellowship programs.��