San Francisco – WestEd is pleased to announce Dr. Marianne Perie is the agency’s new Director of Assessment Research and Innovation. In this role, she will significantly shape the agency’s psychometric and assessment research, providing deep measurement expertise and drawing on her experience to improve educational equity through high-quality research.

“We’re thrilled to be welcoming Marianne to WestEd. She’s a nationally respected psychometrician who has helped more than a dozen states develop and implement fair, valid, and innovative systems of assessment,” says WestEd Senior Managing Director Andy Latham.

“Her intellectual leadership, combined with her passion for equity and opportunity for all students, make her the perfect person to lead our Assessment Research & Innovation team.”

Dr. Perie is joining WestEd to expand on her long career in educational assessment, drawing on her extensive experience in test design, psychometrics, and application. With a focus on the usability and interpretation of data, she has worked with numerous states to develop their school accountability systems. For several years, Dr. Perie facilitated standard-setting workshops and has designed methodologies for both setting and reviewing cut scores.

Serving on several state-level operational programs, she designed and evaluated interim assessments for districts and contributed to research for international assessments, including the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Her projects include designing and validating alternate assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

Dr. Perie also led a reporting group for The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) and has served on numerous National Assessment Governing Board advisory committees. For three years, she led the Technical Issues in Large Scale Assessment collaborative for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and she currently serves on several state technical advisory committees.

Dr. Perie’s recent projects include:

  • Serving as Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Chair for Tennessee, Oklahoma, and New York
  • Designing a workshop to build capacity for evaluating interventions in Kansas Redesign districts
  • Advising on the Oklahoma A-F accountability system
  • Designing psychometric analyses for Florida high school comparability study
  • Building and facilitating Technical Advisory Committee meetings for Edmentum
  • Designing validation studies for Renaissance Learning
  • Documenting psychometric processes for a lay audience for Project Lead the Way
  • Serving as a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education