Appendix B
Disclosure of Unavoidable Conflict of Interest
The conflict of interest policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine1 prohibits the appointment of an individual to a committee authoring a Consensus Study Report if the individual has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the task to be performed. An exception to this prohibition is permitted if the National Academies determines that the conflict is unavoidable and the conflict is publicly disclosed. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual’s actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.
Under institutional policy, Stephen Lazer has a conflict of interest in relation to his service on the committee on Opportunities for NAEP in an Age of AI and Pervasive Computation: A Pragmatic Vision for 2030 and Beyond. This conflict exists because, as president and CEO of Questar Assessment, Lazer works for a company that is a wholly owned, independently operated subsidiary of ETS, the lead contractor for the NAEP program.
The National Academies has concluded that in order for the committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established, it must include a committee member with current experience in large-scale assessment programs and extensive knowledge of the structural constraints of the NAEP program. As his biographical sketch makes clear, Lazer led key parts of the NAEP work at ETS for two decades, which gave him a detailed understanding of the constraints and tradeoffs that are inherent to the program. At the same time, he has a decade of recent experience in other large-scale
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assessment programs in education that have addressed the practicality of a wide range of potential innovations and also provide him with the necessary breadth and independence which will be invaluable to assessing innovations for NAEP. His combined knowledge of the structural constraints of NAEP and the range of innovations implemented in other large-scale assessment programs will be critical to understanding the potential value for the NAEP program of the innovations the study will consider.
The National Academies has determined that the experience and expertise of Lazer is needed for the committee to accomplish the task for which it has been established. The National Academies could not find another available individual with the equivalent expertise and breadth of experience who does not have a conflict of interest under institutional policy. Therefore, the National Academies has concluded that the conflict is unavoidable.
The National Academies believes that Lazer can serve effectively as a member of the committee, and the committee can produce an objective report, taking into account the composition of the committee, the work to be performed, and the procedures to be followed in completing the study.
