Michael T. Nettles, Morgan State University

The keynote of Dr. Michael T. Nettles, PhD, addresses policy challenges, technical challenges, and population challenges—that confront standardized educational and workforce assessments across the globe. Professor Nettles will address challenges that are common to all tests and assessments with emphasis on assessments that are most prominent and consequential for our collective future. Standardized tests around the globe are influential in who gains admission to universities, who receives professional credentials, who is hired, promoted, and licensed, and how nations evaluate the effectiveness of their educational systems. Professor Nettles speaks of Psychometrics as not simply a quiet technical specialty, but rather as global social force in policy debates around the world. Psychometric expertise is often treated as optional, yet everyone has an opinion about tests; therefore, psychometricians are also increasingly called upon to inform and even educate the public about assessments including understanding such concepts as standard errors, construct representation, reliability and validity in such ways that would be exciting and inspirational to a broad public audience. It may be beneficial to the society of psychometricians and the assessment industry to equip policymakers speak in their own (non-technical) language with an understanding of how their policy solutions are affecting such aspects of assessment as standard errors, construct representation and validity.

about the speaker

Michael Nettles is a full professor with tenure and endowed chair of predictive analytics and psychometrics at Morgan State University in Baltimore Maryland. Michael Nettles has built a national and international reputation as a researcher and scholar of education and public policy. His research and scholarly expertise include educational assessment, student performance and achievement, educational equity education finance and education data production analyses and presentation. His publications reflect his broad interest in public policy, student and faculty access, opportunity, achievement, and assessment and financing at both the K–12 and all levels of postsecondary levels. For 18 years (2005-2023) Michael Nettles was the senior vice president for Policy Evaluation and Research at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, and for 11 years prior to that, as full professor with tenure at the University of Michigan (1992-2003) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As Vice President for Assessment at the University of Tennessee, Michael Nettles was the first University Vice President for Assessment in the United States of America.

In August 2014 President Barack Obama appointed Nettles to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He was appointed by two US Secretaries of Education to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which oversees and develops policies for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). He also served for eight years on both the College Board of Trustees and the GRE Board and immediate past chair of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) Board of Trustees. In 2025 Michael Nettles is a member of the advisory council of the Buros Center for Testing.