Carla Evans: New Associate Director of the Center

Carla Evans becomes an associate director of the Center for Assessment on Sept. 18. She has been an associate and senior associate for six years. Carla first joined the Center as a summer intern in 2015 and returned as a post-doctoral fellow in 2018. In the weeks before the transition, she sat down (virtually) with the Center’s editorial director, Catherine Gewertz, for an informal chat about her plans and priorities. You can read or listen to their conversation below.

Carla! I am so glad to talk with you about your new title. Congratulations on becoming co-associate director of the Center. What will you be focusing on in your new role?

Yeah, thanks, Catherine. I’m excited to be here. I see my new role as really a continuation of the long legacy of others who have come before me. So when I think about [Center co-founder] Brian [Gong] and I think about [executive director] Scott [Marion], and Chris [Domaleski]—who will move on to executive director—and just the work that they have done to support me, to support our colleagues in informal and formal ways, I really want to continue that.

And I think some of the ways we do that are we use opportunities at staff meetings to talk about trends in the field or questions we have, problems of practice, things that we’re curious about. And I think it’s really important that we continue to leave space and time to build our professional thoughts and to continue the ways in which we support each other to be better and to think more deeply and critically, and to continue to question and expand how we can have a significant influence in the field.

So part of my focus will be just to continue to curate and to create those spaces for my colleagues and myself to ask questions, to deliberate and, you know, debate with each other, which we do so well. If you’ve ever been at a Center meeting, we definitely don’t all think alike, but I think we’re better together for those reasons.

And so I see that as a key focus area: to continue this trend that [co-founder] Rich [Hill] and Brian started, that Scott continued, and that I know is also important to Chris and [new co-associate-director] Juan [D’Brot] of being thought leaders. You don’t just exist as a thought leader like an on-off switch. You’re a thought leader because you continuously investigate and debate and are curious about things that are happening and ways in which we can support better practice in the field.

You joined the Center as an associate six years ago, and you’ve worked with so many states, districts, education organizations. What do you think you’re most known for, and how do you see elevating those characteristics as a Center leader?

I’m most known, from my perspective, for two things: First, classroom assessment, and second, assessment literacy initiatives. I think part of why I’m most known for those things is because I have a different trajectory in coming to the Center. I was a classroom teacher for the beginning part of my career, for almost a decade.

A lot of the interests that I have and the questions that naturally arose in my PhD program, and in my early time here, were all related to ways in which to help teachers better understand what assessment is for, how to design assessments, how to interpret and use different kinds of assessments, how to align purpose of an assessment with its design.

I have such a desire to kind of help the former Carla, who didn’t know much about assessment, and really had such a keen interest in supporting student learning, but didn’t know a lot and wasn’t trained in my teacher ed program to know a lot about classroom assessment. And I think that’s the way of the world.

And so I have such a deep desire to support educators, broadly speaking—classroom educators, but also school and district leaders, who are coming from a very similar vantage point. Many of them come up through the ranks of being a teacher, then they get some administrative training in a program that really has to do with business and finance and human resources and policy—it has nothing to do with assessment.

And yet we spend so much of our time in schools wanting to know more about our students’ learning: how well are they learning? Who’s learning? Who’s not? And to answer those questions, you need to know something about assessment. And so a big driver of my work, and why I think I’m most known for those things, is because it’s really a deep passion of mine to help demystify these areas that with a little bit of training and assessment literacy can make a huge impact on the daily experience that students have in classrooms.

What about your life outside the Center? What do you love to do? What are you passionate about? Help us get to know you a little bit.

Well currently, I am an Uber driver for my three teenage boys. My oldest actually just passed his written exam today to get his driver’s license. Hallelujah! And hopefully he’ll be able to sign up to take the driving test. They didn’t have any spots open today.

There are a lot of things that I would like to get back to, or that I try to carve out time for, including going on long walks or hikes with my dog and my husband. That’s something that every week, on the weekends, I try to carve out time for because I find nature very grounding and just a time to connect with my husband and just be outside even through the winter, and seeing how the same hike that we take every week changes in the fall, and changes in the spring and in the summer and in the winter. So that’s something I enjoy.

I enjoy reading fiction. I do some reading for work, but try not to do too much reading for work, if that makes sense. So I’m naturally curious about certain things, and then I just also like to read fiction that has nothing to do with anything and doesn’t promote any human flourishing, except that it’s restful for me and helps to clear my mind.

I’d like to pick up pickleball, which is kind of random, but I used to play tennis, and I see people playing pickleball. It looks so fun. And I think, you know, I bought a pickleball set actually this spring when one of my sons had some baseball tournament, and we were waiting around, and I had this, you know, belief that I would have some time to pick it up. So that’s a goal for the rest of the summer is to go.

We have a place that we can play right near us, and to go down there and just try it out. And it looks so fun, and it looks a lot less taxing than tennis, which at this point in time, I don’t even have a tennis racket anymore, so it’s a little bit more accessible for me. But those are some of the things that I like to do outside of work: being with family, being with friends, and then having a little down time for myself and nature and reading and doing some sporting things.