Our Mission and Pillars
Vision
The Center for Measurement Justice (CMJ) is a research center dedicated to supporting justice-oriented educational measurement and professionals.
We envision a future in which all learners see educational assessments as valuable tools to support their learning and liberation.
Mission
We are the epicenter for engagement on measurement justice, galvanizing education communities and supporting measurement professionals, assessment creators, researchers to advance justice-oriented assessment and measurement approaches.
In our work, we push back against assessment practices that do not value diverse types of knowledge and knowledge creation. We acknowledge the white supremacist, racist roots of measurement and seek to disrupt this historical narrative through justice-oriented assessment practices that are explicitly and unapologetically antiracist. And so, as advocates for justice, we lean into difficult assessment and measurement challenges by building awareness, seeking creative solutions, and generating transformative ideas in an effort to provide and/or create measurement justice for all.
Enabling Systemic Transformation
Three Pillars Leading to Transformation
We engage in three primary strands of work. These activities are the fundamental inputs toward the systemic transformation needed to accomplish our mission.
Supporting Critical Research
Antiracist assessment is a nascent field. Much more work is needed to illuminate its impact and potential if others are to take up justice-oriented assessment and measurement practices. To this end, CMJ supports research on the impact, methods, or practical implementation of justice-oriented assessment and measurement. We conduct research with stakeholders, fund critical research of others via research grants, and bring together critical scholars across the field to share their research and connect with like-minded scholars.
Strategic Engagement
Systemic transformation requires field-wide, continuous effort on the part of a network of scholars as well as the inclusion and increased capacity of stakeholders from outside the research community. We therefore engage stakeholders across the education field to (1) promulgate conversations about anti-racist educational measurement and (2) increase the capacity of willing partners to bring antiracist measurement to their constituents.
Increasing Representation
To grow the field of justice-oriented assessment and transform assessment and measurement systems, we support the development of more critical scholars, including scholars from underrepresented populations. CMJ offers fellowships, connects young scholars with opportunities to learn from mentors in the field, and supports young scholars participation with the broader research community (e.g., travel scholarships, internships).