The National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) awarded Catherine Gewertz, Senior Contributing Writer for Education Week, its very first award for Excellence in Public Communication during the 2019 NCME Annual Meeting in Toronto in early April. This award honors Ms. Gewertz’s “journalistic contributions over two decades, which have effectively advanced the public’s knowledge and understanding of educational measurement.”

The NCME Board of Directors asked Dr. Ellen Forte, CEO and Chief Scientist at edCount, to establish and chair this committee, which is meant to recognize contributions that aim to communicate educational measurement concepts to an audience outside the field of educational measurement. Dr. Forte is dedicated to improving assessment literacy among education stakeholders and enhancing the quality and accessibility of measurement information for educators, parents, and students. NCME will ask for nominees for the 2020 prize in late 2019 and edCount will also post this call on its website to enhance dissemination.