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Edward Hirsch was educated at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD in folklore. He is the author of six books of poems: *Lay Back the Darkness* (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003); *On Love* (1998); *Earthly Measures* (1994); *The Night Parade* (1989); *Wild Gratitude* (1986), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award; and *For the Sleepwalkers* (1981), which received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from The Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. He has been a professor of english at Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Hirsch is currently the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

MARY C. WATERS is the M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. She specializes in the study of immigration, inter-group relations, the formation of racial and ethnic identity among the children of immigrants, and the challenges of measuring race and ethnicity. Waters received a B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1978, an M.A. in Demography (1981) and an M.A. (1983) and PhD in Sociology (1986) from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at Harvard University since 1986, and was chair of the Sociology Department from 2001-2005 and acting chair, Spring 2007. Waters has won wide recognition for her teaching and advising, including six prizes for undergraduate teaching. She was named a Harvard College Professor 1999-2004 to honor excellence in teaching. She was director of the Undergraduate Program in Sociology from 1993-2001. Her lecture for graduate students Teaching, *Research and Having a Life* is a popular video at the Derek Bok Center for Teaching at Harvard University.

Michael J. Feuer is the executive director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education in the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he is responsible for a broad portfolio of studies and other activities aimed at improved economic, social, and education policymaking. He was the first director of the NRC's Center for Education and the founding director of the Board on Testing and Assessment. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA from the Wharton School, and studied public administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and political science at the Sorbonne. Upon earning his doctorate, Feuer remained at Penn, teaching graduate seminars in education and working at the Higher Education Finance Research Institute, where he specialized in studies of firm-sponsored training. He then joined the faculty of the business school at Drexel University, teaching courses in public policy and management and continuing his research on the economics of human capital. Feuer was the Burton and Inglis Lecturer at Harvard University in 2004.

Kathleen Cushman is a writer who has specialized in education and school reform for almost two decades. Her work has appeared in the *Harvard Education Letter*, *Educational Leadership*, *Phi Delta Kappan*, the *Atlantic Monthly*, the *New Yorker*, and many other national magazines. Cushman has been writer and editor of two school reform journals, *Horace* and *Challenge Journal*. She is the author or co-author of ten books, including *First in the Family* (Next Generation Press, 2005, 2006), *Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students* (New Press, 2003), *Schooling for the Real World with Adria Steinberg and Rob Riordan* (Jossey-Bass, 2000) and *The Real Boys Workbook*, with William S. Pollack (Random House, 2001).

Daniel Koretz focuses his research primarily on educational assessment, particularly as a tool of education policy. A primary emphasis in his work has been the effects of high-stakes testing, including effects on schooling and the validity of score gains. His research has included studies of the effects of testing programs, the assessment of students with disabilities, international differences in the variability of student achievement, the application of value-added models to educational achievement, and the development of methods for validating scores under high-stakes conditions. His current work focuses on the design and evaluation of test-focused educational accountability systems. Dr. Koretz founded and chairs the International Project for the Study of Educational Accountability, an international network of scholars investigating improved approaches to educational accountability. Dr. Koretz is a member of the National Academy of Education. His doctorate is in developmental psychology from Cornell University. Before obtaining his degree, Dr. Koretz taught emotionally disturbed students in public elementary and junior high schools.

Charles G. Cogan is a Senior Research Associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He spent 37 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, lastly as CIA Chief in Paris. After leaving the CIA, he earned a doctorate in public administration at Harvard. He is currently working on a book for the United States Institute of Peace in its Cross-Cultural Negotiations series, entitled *French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with "La Grande Nation."*