Joanne L. Jensen serves as WestEd’s Director of Assessment Design and Development. In that capacity, she develops strategic solutions to address state and district assessment needs, and she serves as a senior technical advisor for WestEd’s assessment development contracts.
With more than 30 years of service at WestEd, Jensen has extensive experience supporting states in the development of standards-based assessments using both paper-based and computer-based administrations. In collaboration with state clients, she has led development activities that have included technology-enhanced items, single-option and multiple-option selected-response items, performance-based tasks, and a range of constructed-response items. She presently serves as senior advisor for the development of Tennessee’s formative assessment offerings, Louisiana’s summative assessments for social studies and science, and Arizona’s English Language Learner Assessment.
Jensen previously was the senior technical advisor for a project with Johns Hopkins University to develop the Early Childhood Comprehensive Assessment System for Maryland and Ohio. She has been the project director for Nevada’s Proficiency Examination Program; Kentucky’s Commonwealth Accountability Testing System; West Virginia’s WESTEST Statewide Assessment Program; the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System science and history/social sciences assessments; and the End-of-Semester Assessment Program for the Cincinnati Public Schools for grades 9–12. She also has led the development of the Comprehensive Student Certification System for the National Academy Foundation, combining career-technical competencies with 21st-century skills.
She received a BA in psychology from California State University, Fresno, and an MA in education and a PhD in educational psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.