Spotlight on Dr. Melissa Gholson: “I Believe in Possibilities and I Believe It’s Up To Us To Do It”

Written By Stephanie Cawthon

I had the chance to catch up with Dr. Melissa Gholson at the 2023 American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Chicago in April. I’ve worked Melissa-adjacent for years but never really had a chance to sit down and learn about her and her work.

We took a break from the whirlwind of conference sessions to have a quiet moment and to get to know each other a bit better. Lucky me. Lucky you. 🍀

Here is what is immediately obvious after just a few minutes in her orbit.  

🌟 Melissa is a passionate advocate for students with disabilities. 

“I am a long-time believer in the philosophy of inclusive education and inclusive assessment and accountability.”

Melissa continually seeks ways to make the assessment process – from design to implementation to score reporting – more inclusive. She notes that the use of averages can be very exclusionary for students with disabilities. She points out that often students with disabilities are not included in the piloting of items and development of item templates. She emphasizes not just understanding how students know things but also how they respond to things. 

Melissa gives off the energy of a momma bear, not just for her own kids and students but for all children. She doesn’t want to see anyone left behind, even if unintentionally. She has made it her life’s mission to make sure that what we do in education is in support of all children reaching their full potential. And she does that work with the full force of all the energy she’s got (which, my friends, is a force indeed). 

🌟 No moss grows under Melissa’s feet. 

Melissa shared several accounts of how she saw a problem, identified resources, and quickly got to work. In each, she was motivated to mobilize and move the needle so that whatever barriers to access existed would be gone as soon as possible. This is because she has an innate need to make sure that justice and equity are not delayed for any reason that is within her influence!

Melissa is also a fighter. Don’t let that introverted persona fool you. Not only is Melissa a creative problem solver, but she is also a fierce advocate who does not give up on doing what is right. 

🌟 Melissa thinks outside the box. 

“I am very hopeful because we have seen a lot of improvement in the assessment industry. I am excited about the future because I see a lot of assessments that are being designed for students with significant cognitive disabilities and for English Learners with significant cognitive disabilities. I think that this work matters because before we had assessments, nobody paid attention to these groups of students.”

Business as usual is not the game that Melissa plays.

She credits her experience as a rural educator in West Virginia for shaping her from day one to think outside the box. I now know that if I need a brainstorming partner or someone who can help with an outside perspective, I will reach out to Melissa. She has both a scrappy and positive attitude. It can be easy to get bogged down in the negative, especially in the world of assessment. Melissa doesn’t have time for that!

🌟 Melissa is an educator at her core.

“We are all in the world together, and we need to learn how to make that work.” 

Melissa is thorough, intentional, and other-centered. She thinks we need more attention to reporting that has the student’s self-concepts in mind. Our reports on assessment can be improved to be more asset-based and to remember that students can take control of their own learning. Asset-based reporting – especially to show progress over time – is a hopeful message for parents as well. They are in it for the long game and want their children to be successful. 

If you have seen her at a conference, you know that Melissa is not only ready to share with you what she knows, but she makes it as directly applicable to the work that you are doing as possible. Her summary of our papers at the recent AERA session was not just ON POINT; it was also a masterful guide to how we can all be better at our work as researchers and as communicators. I was scrambling to take notes of all the resources she shared for improving our work and workflows! 

🌟 Melissa has deep experience with assessment.

“My journey began pretty early on when I found myself doing diagnostic assessments for students with disabilities and finding out that there is a lot of bias in items… I was an educator in rural West Virginia, where most students do not ever see the ocean. The item had the word WHARF, and I was so offended that my students would have to be tested on something that they had no exposure to. I wrote to the test vendor and asked if they had considered using the word DOCK because most of our students would have known what that is.”

What I love about this story is not just that Melissa recognized the bias, but that, as an educator, she WROTE to the assessment company to fix the issue.

If you haven’t known Melissa for a long time, you may not realize just how much Melissa has accomplished in her career. Her CV illustrates what a journey she has had.

Melissa was a special education teacher for almost 15 years, an assistant professor at both Ohio University and Marshall University, and a high school principal. From that foundation, she became the Supervisor of Federal Programs for Cabell County Schools with a strong emphasis on both policy and programming quality for students with disabilities across the state of West Virginia. From there, she was the West Virginia  State Assessment Coordinator during 2009-2017, a critical decade of growth and complexity in assessment.

Melissa has worked for large assessment organizations, including WIDA and ETS, and has invested significant time as a lead Peer Reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education accountability system. 

Whew!

Across these roles, Melissa has been in the midst of many key transitions in our field:

  • Worked to help implement changes from the portfolio to the performance task assessments at the state level. 

  • Led in the design, validation, and implementation of alternate assessments in multiple states over her career, including the Alternate ELPAC for the California Department of Education. 

  • An innovator in the transition from paper to digital assessments, with an emphasis on ensuring accessibility for all populations.  

  • Principal Investigator on multiple assessment and evaluation projects to serve disabled students in both the U.S. and internationally.

  • Proposed ways to include intersectional approaches to measuring item bias in a project called: Beyond DIF (Differential Item Functioning). 

🌟 Melissa is curious. 

Melissa continues to contribute to research as much as she is able so that the field can continue to advance forward. She shared pictures of her years growing up, always with a book, working in her journalism club, or otherwise in pursuit of her dreams.

As a first-generation high school and college student, Melissa pursued dreams beyond her imaginings. She does not take that for granted.

Melissa’s favorite research publications include the following — and check out her ORCID record for more about her scholarship!

🌟 Melissa has hope for the future.

What Melissa hasn’t done YET (one of her favorite words) is design an interim alternate assessment. She sees great potential in the new work on balanced assessment systems to provide space for formative and interim assessments designed for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. 

Her energy jumps off the page! She’s passionate about supporting students, teachers, parents, and administrators with assessments that truly improve education for this often overlooked population. 

You can bet on Melissa accomplishing this in the near future!

Here are additional discoveries from our delightful conversation that may not be readily apparent at first glance at Melissa’s bio. 

🌟 Melissa keeps bees with her husband, Jim. 

She has the kind of hobbies that keeps her grounded and down to earth – in this case, literally. What’s more grounding than caring for the bees that pollinate the plants that bring us the food that we eat? She grew up with bees and has continued in that tradition. 

🌟 Melissa is a team player of the finest kind. 

She is devoted to her colleagues. Melissa showed me many pictures of important moments in her life, and a great majority of them were with people she worked with on projects big and small. She names each of those people with love and care and pride. If you’ve had a chance to work with Melissa closely, you probably already know this. 

🌟 Melissa loves Halloween. 

I mean, she LOVES Halloween. I wish I could attend a Halloween event at her house! Such an expression of community, fun, and family. Melissa truly cultivates a spirit of happiness and joy. The adage “life is too short” rings true with Melissa. She has clearly passed this tradition on to her children and grandchildren.

🌟 Melissa is full of priceless turns of phrase. 

An hour in Melissa’s company is a master class in the beauty of language. From her witty metaphors to her sense of play, I just love being with Melissa and having her paint her view of the world through language. Here’s a few, just to give you a flavor.

“Change is hard, even for a butterfly.”

"The harder the climb, the prettier the view.”

"Where there are bees, there is honey." (people who work hard reap a sweet life) 

"Speech is silver. Silence is gold.”

"Every tub must stand on its own bottom.” (which means everyone should stand on their own)

🌟 Melissa loves to laugh.

It’s contagious! I mean, if laughter is medicine, Melissa is a cure for all that ails you. Pour me a cup of that laughter any day.

Stephanie Cawthon
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