Senior Vice President, PARCC

Laura McGiffert Slover joined Achieve in 1998, shortly after governors and business leaders created the organization.

As senior vice president, Laura has senior responsibility for leading the unit at Achieve that is tasked with overseeing the design, development and implementation of the next generation assessment system developed by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a consortium of states that received a Race to the Top assessment award.

Laura began her career as a high school English language arts teacher in Eagle County, Colorado, where she was involved in the district's early efforts to develop standards and benchmark assessments. She also taught writing and composition at Colorado Mountain College. Since she joined Achieve in 1998, she has held a number of positions, most recently Vice President for Content and Policy Research. In that role, she led Achieve's work in the area of standards and assessments, including its efforts on the development of Common Core State Standards and the launch and oversight of the 15 state American Diploma Project (ADP) Assessment Consortium, one of two existing multistate assessment partnerships. She also provided senior leadership for Achieve’s benchmarking and alignment initiatives in English, mathematics and science; its international benchmarking analyses; and its overall research agenda and technical assistance to states.

A native Washingtonian, Laura earned a bachelor's degree in English and American literature from Harvard University; a master's in education curriculum and instruction from the University of Colorado at Boulder; and a master's in education policy from Georgetown University.

She lives with her husband and daughter in Washington, DC, and she currently serves as President of the DC State Board of Education.