Andrew Ho Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) — an honorary society and independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines — has announced that Professor Andrew Ho, a psychometrician and educator, has been elected a member.

“I am honored, humbled, and I admit still overwhelmed at my election,” says Ho. “Few people know what a psychometrician even is. I hope having my job title in a press release alongside Jodie Foster and Colson Whitehead helps to increase interest in my field.”

Since its founding in 1780, the AAAS has elected members whose work and excellence in their fields has contributed to the organization’s stated values, including advancing the common good; upholding democratic ideals; elevating the use of evidence and knowledge; and fostering deliberative discourse. This year’s group of 252 members includes leaders in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research, and science.

“Educational measurement is a beautiful, impossible challenge,” continues Ho. “We make invisible knowledge and skills not only visible but quantifiable. Then, at our best, we help others to understand how these can grow. But we often rest on a knife’s edge. The same score that inspires one child to learn can discourage another. The same rating that inspires one school community to improve can discourage another.”

Ho’s research aims to improve the design, use, and interpretation of test scores in educational policy and practice. He is known for his development of methods for measuring educational progress and educational inequality, including as developer of a national archive of student achievement data Further, he is an advocate for using educational tests for low-stakes monitoring in multiple-measures systems.

Ho is a former president of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), has served as a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and is a member of the Governing Board for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. He serves on committees advising state testing programs for seven U.S. states.

“As a recent president of NCME, I emphasized the importance of communication in our field. If we hope to use measurement to improve education, we must do more than quantify. We must communicate, and we must engage,” he says

“Measurement, like the Academy, bridges disciplines. I am proud to represent measurement with my colleagues in the Academy and beyond. And I look forward to engaging with my fellow Academy members and those in our fields to improve measurement to benefit society.”

Ho joins current HGSE faculty members Danielle Allen, Susan Dynarski, Catherine Elgin, Paul Harris, Heather Hill, Bridget Long, Charles Nelson, and Carola Suárez-Orozco, as well as emeritus faculty members Howard Gardner, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Richard Light, and Catherine Snow, among AAAS's membership.