Steve Chappuis has served as a public school teacher, principal and district administrator. In the private sector he helped small and large education service companies establish strategic plans for professional development and publishing. He has delivered presentations around the country to school leaders on the benefits of quality classroom assessment and how to implement local balanced assessment systems, and has authored and co-authored books and articles on the same topics. Carol Commodore is an independent consultant whose special interests center on leadership, assessment, systems thinking, motivation and learning. An educator for more than 30 years, she served as a classroom teacher, a department chair, an assistant superintendent and an assessment coordinator. During her tenure as a district leader she facilitated the establishment of new programs in the areas of balanced assessment and foreign language. Carol has coauthored three other books in the areas of assessment and leadership. Carol presents and consults for local, state, national and international organizations across North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Rick Stiggins is the retired founder and president of the Assessment Training Institute in Portland, Oregon, a professional development firm helping educators face the challenges of day-to-day classroom assessment in the context of truly balanced assessment systems. Rick earned a doctoral degree in education measurement from Michigan State University. He began his assessment work on the faculty of Michigan State before becoming a member of the faculty of educational foundations at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In addition, he has served as director of test development for the ACT, Iowa City, IA; as a visiting scholar at Stanford University; as a Libra Scholar, University of Southern Maine; as director of the Centers for Classroom Assessment and Performance Assessment at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Portland, Or; and as a member of the faculty of Lewis and Clark College, Portland. He has authored numerous articles, books and training videos on sound classroom assessment, assessment for learning and balanced assessment systems.