It is critical for successful testing programs to maintain item pools that are balanced against content and statistical specifications in test plans, and large enough to support test administration and security demands. A plan to ensure the quality of the pool is critical to meet this goal. The organizations leading this session have either maintained the rigor of their own high stakes assessments or managed the review of pools for clients in education, certification, and licensure. Pool quality can be evaluated by several criteria: balance (deviation from target at every blueprint level); depth (variants of items available at every level); currency (reflects current best evidence); blueprint specificity (consistently produce content and statistically acceptable exam forms); focus (items measure appropriate cognitive ability); and statistical attributes (ability to meet desired statistical characteristics). After collecting these data, focus shifts to improving pool quality and size. Tactics included targeting item writing assignments to specific shortages and item modeling to increase pool depth. Strategies to increase pretest capacity were also used, including: a methodology for estimating IRT parameters from CTT statistics, adjusting statistical screening criteria, and using not-yet-pretested items on live exams. As the cost of generating items increases, it is important to have a strategy for keeping high quality items in the pool. To assess pool quality, representatives from the first program have used tools such as Automated Test Assembly to determine how many nonoverlapping, balanced forms could be created from pools. Representatives from the second program have worked with partners in education and credentialing to implement policies and procedures to ensure pool quality and identify long-term needs for their item pools. Tools used have included data visualization techniques that have aided in communication with key constituents. The session will have three parts: – Presenters will share their experience with measuring, monitoring, and improving pool quality – Participants will work in small groups to: discuss the presentation and share their experiences; brainstorm about pool metrics that might be useful; and brainstorm about other approaches to pool improvement and maintenance – Each group will report on key points from their discussion