Peggy G. Carr, Ph.D.

Acting Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics
Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

Peggy G. Carr is the Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. As Acting Commissioner, Dr. Carr oversees NCES’ fulfillment of its congressional mandate to “. . . collect, collate, analyze, and report complete statistics on the condition of American education; conduct and publish reports; and review and report on education activities internationally.”

In her appointment as Acting Commissioner, Dr. Carr continues to serve as the Associate Commissioner of Assessment for NCES, a role she has held for 16 years. She is responsible for national and international large-scale assessments, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Student Assessment (PISA). NAEP is the largest and most complex of the large-scale assessments and has been congressionally mandated since 1969. It is America’s only ongoing monitor of students’ academic progress of its kind.

Dr. Carr received her bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a concentration in statistics, from North Carolina Central University and obtained master’s and doctoral degrees in developmental psychology from Howard University. Dr. Carr has also served as the Chief Statistician for the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Before joining the U.S. Department of Education, she served as the Research Methodologist of Howard University’s Statistical and Research Computer Laboratory. She also spent more than 15 years teaching doctoral-level graduate courses as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Howard University. Dr. Carr has published in a variety of areas, including child psychology, social psychology, experimental psychology, bio-statistics, student achievement, and assessment methodology.

Dr. Carr has been a Senior Executive Service (SES) official for the U.S. Department of Education since 2001 and was awarded the Meritorious Executive Rank Award for sustained superior accomplishments in management of programs in 2008 by President George Bush.