James “Dale” Cornelius is the founding chair of 1EdTech's Assessment Innovation Leadership Network and the former chair of the PARCC Assessment Technology Working Group, the first national state test designed to be 100% online and accessible to all learners. He is the Chief Information Officer for the Maryland State Department of Education where he was a founding member of the group that developed the first accessibility and interoperability standards for web-based assessment systems (now called QTI v 3.0). Previous to Maryland, Dale developed a web-based formative and summative assessment system for the Oakland Unified School District in California, helping Oakland achieve one of the highest academic growth improvement measures in the state. Before Oakland, Dale was at Edusoft, where he managed assessment services for school districts in California and Texas. Earlier in his career, he worked in corporate training, at McKinsey, and previous to that taught English. He earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a master's from Middlebury College, and is a two time graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School.
