College of Education to Celebrate Legacy of Scholar Edmund W. Gordon and Publication of Handbook Series

The UMass Amherst College of Education invites the education community and the public to a special event celebrating the extraordinary legacy of scholar Edmund W. Gordon and the release of his latest book series, "Handbook for Assessment in the Service of Learning," which is available at no cost through Open Publishing at UMass Amherst.

The celebration event, coordinated by Stephen Sireci, University Distinguished Professor and executive director of the Center for Educational Assessment, will bring together special guests from the education and UMass Amherst community on Friday, Nov. 14 from 4-6 p.m. at the College of Education Furcolo Hall, Carney Auditorium.

Now 104 years old, Gordon is a distinguished emeritus professor at Yale University and the Teachers College at Columbia University and director emeritus of the Gordon Institute for Advanced Study. He also serves as honorary president of the American Educational Research Association.

Through his six-decade career span, he is credited with transforming pre-K-12 education through his visionary leadership, pathbreaking scholarship, and a deep commitment to promoting equity and access to quality education for all students. He is one of the founding designers of the federal Head Start program and has authored 200 articles and 25 books that has influenced education, psychology, and social science research.

Gordon's ties to UMass Amherst are rooted in his connections to W.E.B Du Bois and the field of educational assessment research. While a student at Howard University, Gordon became W.E.B Du Bois's mentee and friend. He played a key role in acquiring the Du Bois's homestead in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and establishing it as a memorial site, which was later donated to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is now managed by UMass Amherst.

Sireci first met Gordon through an online National Council on Measurement in Education symposium in 2020. The two collaborated on projects centering on the shared vision of using educational assessments as a development tool for student learning. Like Du Bois was to Gordon, Gordon became influential to Sireci.

Three years ago, Sireci was asked to be one of the five editors on this latest handbook series: Volume I: Foundations for Assessment in the Service of Learning; Volume II: Reconceptualizing Assessment to Improve Learning and Volume III: Examples of Assessment in the Service of Learning.

The three-volume series, available through UMass Amherst Libraries open access, are intended for a broad audience from test developers, assessment researchers, psychometricians, and learning scientists to educators, policy makers and designers. Through its resources, the series aims to guide policymakers and PreK-12 leaders in shaping the future of assessment, while offering developers and researchers a blueprint for designing and scaling the next generation of assessments for learning.

Sireci said the handbook series includes 40 chapters written by 60 scholars, who all volunteered their time. He described the project as a collaborative effort "to help complete Ed's work."

More information about the event and a link to RSVP can be found on the College of Education website.