ETS
A major assessment-research organization, historically associated with standardized testing infrastructure (SAT, GRE, TOEFL). Cited in the MMI brief alongside the Carnegie Foundation as bringing "psychometric rigor to next-generation competency-based measures" — placing ETS, perhaps surprisingly, on the H3 measurement side of the field rather than purely the traditional-testing side.
Role in the field
The brief's positioning is brief but specifically loaded:
"ETS and the Carnegie Foundation are bringing psychometric rigor to next-generation competency-based measures."
That framing matters because it pushes back against a common narrative — that competency-based and human-skills measurement is necessarily less rigorous than traditional testing. The brief's broader argument ("rigor is not the trade-off it's assumed to be") is partly evidenced by the participation of legacy psychometric institutions in next-generation work.
ETS sits in the advancing methods and rigor tier of the brief's existing-momentum section, alongside The Study Group and Search Institute. Each addresses a different facet:
- The Study Group — methods for developing measures in service of learning.
- ETS / Carnegie Foundation — psychometric validation for competency-based measures.
- Search Institute — published frameworks and instruments for relational health.
Personnel named
- Laura Slover — ETS participant in the MMI design sprints / interviews.
The Carnegie Foundation is represented in the participant roster by Brooke Stafford-Brizard (CFAT — Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching).
Why it matters
ETS is the institutional weight class. If ETS's psychometric infrastructure is being aimed at competency-based measurement, the implications for credibility and uptake are non-trivial — particularly for funders and state agencies that need to defend measurement choices.
The brief does not name specific ETS projects in this area; that's a gap worth filling. The "next-generation competency-based measures" phrase implies concrete work, but the brief doesn't cite it.
Follow-ups
- Identify and ingest the specific ETS work the brief refers to — competency-based or human-skills assessment projects with named psychometric validation efforts.
- Decide whether to promote the Carnegie Foundation to its own entity page when a second source surfaces it substantively. Currently it's a co-mention with ETS in a single sentence; not enough material.
- Track whether ETS's traditional-testing portfolio is in tension with its H3 work — the brief's "structural tension" framing about private companies leading next-gen R&D applies here in a complicated way (ETS is technically a nonprofit but operates with revenue dynamics similar to commercial testing).