Jason Williams
General Questions – AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction
What is your education and relevant experience for this office?
Throughout my career, I have demonstrated my ability to work with many stakeholders in a variety of settings to produce clear results for students. As a 6th grade math and science teacher in Oakland, I was nominated for California’s Middle School Teacher of the Year Award and was also elected to the California Teachers’ Association State Council of Education. I served as Teach For America’s Executive Director in Phoenix where I increased teacher placements by 150% and moved Phoenix from the lowest to the highest performing region in student achievement nationally. I have also served on several charter school boards, initiated a fund to help elect strong school board candidates, and I currently work with the Roosevelt School District on its turnaround efforts, while also serving as a faculty member of the Beat The Odds Institute Parent Liaison Academy. Each of these experiences has demonstrated my passion for public education, my determination to contribute as I can to improving education, and my ability to navigate the many different people, organizations, and structures in the Arizona education landscape. The breadth of my work puts me in the best position to move all of Arizona’s students forward as Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Do you feel the primary role of the State Superintendent is to serve the local districts or to provide leadership and vision to the system?
A highly effective Superintendent must do both. As Superintendent, I will provide leadership and vision to the system, but also change the internal dynamic within the Arizona Department of Education to be one of service and partnership with school districts.
Where would you like to see AZ schools in 5 and 10 years? Please be specific regarding funding, national ranking, etc.
In the 1990s, Arizona actually had a very competitive level of per-pupil funding. In the next 10 years, I would like to see Arizona resume that level of investment. Our ultimate goal should be to have Arizona schools be the best in the country; however, given how far we must go to reach that level of success, my priority will be moving our schools forward to be competitive nationally.
What do you feel is the top issue facing AZ schools?
We must change our system of accountability to be one that rewards success and actually promotes real student achievement. Too often in our schools today, the word “accountability” is just a catchphrase. Because educational outcomes are so aligned with our state’s economic strength, we must have real accountability in our schools. I will ensure we have an honest, accurate assessment of where our students stand academically, and we are aggressively moving all students forward according to student growth objectives. Everyone involved in the education system must be held accountable for ensuring students’ academic progress.
What is your philosophy on charter schools and do you feel that the current system is working?
Charter schools are an important part of the public school landscape. Originally designed to be incubators of innovation, we have seen some tremendous examples of success, including the BASIS schools, KIPP schools, YES Prep, etc. In Arizona, we have seen charters step in to fill real needs, including Genesis, which is for high school students with significant challenges that put them at risk of dropping out. Over the sixteen years of the charter school movement in Arizona, we have come to recognize that charters are not the silver bullet for education, but they can play a necessary role in our system. The challenge we are now facing is how to ensure that charters are high quality. We have not adequately held them accountable for fulfilling their mission of educating students. Under my leadership, we will work in partnership with the Arizona Charter Schools Association implement a more robust review of charters, with more regular oversight, to ensure high quality charters have the opportunity to flourish and charters that are mismanaging their responsibilities are closed.
What key changes would you make to the current education system in Arizona?
One of the most critical challenges I will tackle as Superintendent will be changing the dynamic between the Department of Education and the school districts and charter schools. The ADE should be a resource and proactively provide support to districts with a focus on holding all schools – district and charter – accountable for student achievement. With the goal of changing this dynamic, the top three initiatives I will prioritize are the following:
1. We must redesign our state assessment system in order to honestly assess where our students stand, set goals for growth, and then expect to be held accountable for reaching those goals.
2. We must dramatically increase human capital and aggressively recruit talent to the public schools. In addition to increasing the teacher/principal talent pool, we need to assemble a nonprofit council, made up of representatives of nonprofit organizations who are having a significant impact on our schools.
3. We must survey the current state of our schools and truthfully evaluate programs to ensure that our tax dollars are being spent in an efficient and effective way. Only then can we conduct an honest needs assessment to determine where our schools are lacking and what resources they need to compete in the 21st century.
What are your thoughts on reform that seem to be working in other states-- charter schools, merit pay, longer school days/year etc? If you favor them, how can AZ get them in place? If you oppose them, please explain how maintaining the present system is going to improve student performance.
I have been very encouraged by some of the great strides in student achievement other states are making. In particular, there are many lessons we can learn from states like my home state of Massachusetts. As Superintendent, I will work closely with school districts, including those who have already had success with some of these reforms (e.g. performance pay in Alhambra, a longer school year in Balsz, and a longer school day in Creighton) to identify the best way to adapt these reforms for Arizona’s needs. The Department of Education will provide support for districts in implementing reforms, and I will work with the State Board of Education and the Legislature to ensure districts have the flexibility to find solutions that work for their students.
Is there any ongoing state Department of Education initiative(s) that you plan to discontinue if elected?
I will discontinue the current system of AIMS. We must move away from this one test on one day culture that we’ve created, and move towards a more holistic, growth-based assessment model that uses student growth objectives to measure success to ensure we are moving all of our students forward academically
Do you think that class-size affects academic performance? How and at what size?
I firmly believe class size affects student academic performance, particularly in the early grades. Students are not widgets; each student has individual needs, and teachers need to be able to get to know their students and work with them on a more individual basis than is possible in an over-crowded classroom. While it is true that effective teachers are able to still produce excellent results in a large class, we should not be asking our teachers to take on that task every year.
What is your assessment of the state's education data system (SAIS) ?
The fact that SAIS is going to be replaced already with a statewide longitudinal data system in the Data Warehouse shows clearly that SAIS has some significant limitations. Because of the importance of having accurate data, we cannot continue to funnel money into inadequate systems like SAIS.
What role should the Superintendent play in securing State Trust Land revenues for public education?
The Superintendent must be the “chief cheerleader” for public education and must aggressively pursue all sources of funding. The Superintendent should absolutely be advocating for increased revenue from the State Trust Land, as well as every other possible source.
Do you feel the negative opinion of the quality of Arizona's education, based on numerous rankings, has made this state an unattractive option for corporations to grow or expand their business?
I do. I absolutely believe a link exists between educational outcomes and economic outcomes. In order to attract and retain high quality companies and jobs in Arizona, we must have a strong public education system as well as a talented, well-prepared workforce. Because of this strong link, Arizona’s legislative leaders must begin to look at education as an investment instead of an expense.
Public school teachers and administrators are amongst the highest educated and lowest paid professionals in the State of Arizona. In this time of budget cuts, how will you motivate them?
Teachers and school leaders need to be recognized for excellence. For this reason, I support a performance-based pay system for our educators. There are high-quality examples of performance-based compensation systems across the country, some as close as the Alhambra School District in Maricopa County. A performance-based compensation plan would be connected to the new accountability system, using multiple indicators of both student achievement and professional growth. Designing a performance pay system needs to include all of the stakeholders, especially the teachers. It is critical for us to build a successful system. In Arizona, we already have a foundation for performance-based pay in Proposition 301. Despite its lofty intentions, Prop 301 has not been a true reward for excellence. I will work with teachers, districts, the Performance Based Compensation Task Force, and the Arizona Legislature to reform the implementation of Prop 301 and make it a true performance-based compensation system. We also have the Career Ladder program in some of Arizona’s school districts, which is a starting point for building the professional trajectory for classroom teachers. I will support the continued use of Career Ladder and explore options for expanding it to the rest of the state.
In the past 12 months have you had the opportunity to observe any Arizona classrooms? If so, where and what grade level and what specifics can you share about class size and per pupil expenditure in those classrooms?
I visit schools statewide on a regular basis to see what their challenges and opportunities are, what programs have been most successful, how school leaders and teachers are being innovative and creative in finding ways to move their students forward. In the past twelve months I’ve visited schools in almost every county in urban and rural areas. I’ve observed classrooms at every grade level, and I’ve even guest presented to middle school, high school and college level classes. I’ve already committed, as Superintendent of Public Instruction, to spend at least one day a week working outside of Maricopa County to meet with educators, parents, students and community members, to ensure people in Arizona have direct access to the head of the Department of Education.
In regards to charter school performance measurements, how do you feel about charter school test scores being compared to public schools when the charter schools are allowed "entrance requirements" that select for higher performing students to begin with?
All schools need to be held accountable for moving all of their students forward. Thus, under the revised accountability system, schools will be evaluated on their ability to reach student growth goals, not based solely on one test result. By focusing on growth, some of the discrepancy will be minimized.
There have been discussions regarding implementation of restrictions on how closely charter schools can operate in relation to public schools as the charters become competitive, thus creating inefficiencies in maximizing taxpayer assets such as buildings... what are your thoughts on this idea?
We must objectively and thoroughly look at all charter applications to ensure we are providing high quality educational opportunities for all students. I would be open to having a conversation about how to best maximize all resources in the public education system, including discussing how to minimize inefficiencies in location; however, I am not prepared to make a categorical response without looking at situations individually based on the needs of the community in question.
Assessment Questions – AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction
What is your overall feeling about the unfunded mandate of an AIMS test? Give specifics.
We need to hold ourselves accountable to high expectations for all students. A single standardized test is the worst possible way to accomplish this goal. In policy jargon, what we need is a “gains-based analysis of a diverse portfolio of student skills and work with benchmarks.” In other words, we need to look at what is actually happening in all of our schools and classrooms at every grade level, not just at the endpoint when students receive a diploma. Where does each student start the year? Where does each student end the year? How much has each student grown academically during that time? And have we provided a diversity of opinions in the curriculum for students so they are inspired to pursue their passions, including vocational trades, art music, languages, etc.? These are the right questions to ask when considering how we measure students’ academic readiness.
Please share with the voting public how you will improve, do away with, or change the current AIMS testing required of students? Be specific.
Significant changes need to be made to the current AIMS testing program. We must realistically acknowledge that continually lowering the standards for AIMS has watered it down so much it is no longer useful. Does it matter if AIMS scores are rising, if passing the test does not indicate a student is college or career-ready? We need to raise the bar on the level of difficulty for our state assessments, making them measures of college and career-readiness, but we also need to ensure we are capturing a full understanding of what a student knows and can do. No singular test can ever measure fully students’ skills and knowledge. We need to have multiple indicators to determine a students’ readiness for graduation. These other measures can include real-life applications of knowledge, interdisciplinary projects assessed by teams of teachers with a standard rubric, or portfolios of classroom assignments to demonstrate subject mastery. Because of the importance of assessment in our schools, redesigning our state assessment system will be my first priority in office. I believe teachers need to be intimately involved in this process, because they have the first-hand knowledge of how students demonstrate mastery. In my first year in office, I will convene a group of teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders to develop a new system of assessment based on multiple mastery indicators. By bringing the right people to the table, I will ensure Arizona creates a world-class assessment system.
Do you support Arizona adopting the National Core Standards? If so, how will you support the implementation of these standards within school districts?
Working in Arizona after growing up in Massachusetts and teaching in California, I absolutely understand the appeal of a common core of standards. In an ideal world, each state, including Arizona, would have developed high-quality standards that would ensure all American students are highly performing. But that has not been the case; in fact, Arizona’s standards, especially prior to the most recent revision of the math standards, are much less rigorous than most other states in the country. By not having rigorous standards, Arizona has set itself up to have a second tier education system.
Because of the need to increase the rigor of our standards, I am pleased Arizona is voluntarily participating in the Common Core consortium, which is developing internationally-benchmarked, college and career-ready standards and assessments, as these standards will set a higher bar for students to achieve. Under my leadership, we will assess the quality of standards and assessments this initiative produces and then, if they meet our requirements of rigor, implement these aggressive standards. The Department of Education will take a proactive, support-oriented approach to ensuring every district has the resources and professional development needed to seamlessly transition to the Common Core, if that is the direction our state goes.
AZ public schools have become so obsessed with meeting "State Standards" that we've missed the mark for many children, trumping their IEPs in some instances. What can or will you do as Superintendent to ensure that the individual needs of students take priority over meeting state standards?
We need to dramatically shift the dynamic and mindset in our public education system. We must recognize that students are not widgets and need individualized attention, particularly our students with special needs. But we cannot use individualization as an excuse to lower our expectations for any student. I firmly believe all students can achieve academically, and as Superintendent, I will build a culture that expects high achievement for all students while also recognizing individual needs. Using student growth instead of one singular standardized test will assist in shifting this dynamic because it will be more personalized while also maintaining ambitious expectations for all.
The Enhanced Accessibility for the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) has been under development to meet the needs of students whose disability prohibits them from achieving grade level proficiency. Unfortunately, the assessment’s development has suddenly halted because of the lack of budgeted funds to validate the test. What would you do to ensure that the AIMS-EA would be rolled out for these students? How high of a priority will you set for this assessment in your budget proposals?
We absolutely must prioritize having the tools necessary to assess student achievement. Given my plan to move our accountability system away from AIMS, I will shift a significant amount of the funding for the current AIMS battery to developing our new accountability system, and I will be sure the new accountability system includes our special needs students with the appropriate tools to assess their growth.
Special Education and Gifted Needs –
AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction
The budget cuts have eliminated the funding for the Gifted Students Educational Program and many critical needs such as our CCUSD Consultant for Gifted Services. What ideas do you have and/or what measures will you take to ensure the success of Gifted Education Programs?
Given the budget reality, I will be prioritizing identifying and building strong partnerships with nonprofit organizations and other community groups which can provide many of the enrichment experiences our gifted students need to progress. I will also work with all school districts to share best practices around how other districts are handling the resource challenges so that everyone can learn from each other’s success in continuing to provide students with the services they deserve.
What are the qualifications that you would use to appoint the head of the ADE’s Exceptional Student Services Unit?
First and foremost, I will search for an educational leader with a proven record of success in working with exceptional students. More than anything, our public education system needs leadership, and the head of the Exceptional Student Services Unit must be able to deeply understand the nuances of our public education system, particularly for our exceptional students and special educators.
How do you intend to measure performance for special education teachers given the new AZ method of compensating teachers based on performance?
Our special education students deserve the best teachers possible. Likewise, as professionals, all teachers, including special educators, deserve an honest assessment of their performance. I believe teacher evaluation systems should be modified to include more in-class observations as well as student performance data in evaluations. It is unfair to base performance compensation on one standardized test, especially when not all teachers teach a tested subject, and a blanket approach does not address the many nuances in our system. Teacher compensation and evaluation should be based on the teacher’s ability to move all of his or her students forward according to appropriate student growth objectives.
The advent of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, along with Arizona certification requirements, has led to many regulations about qualifications for teachers. Most of the teachers in special education classrooms have now been required by these provisions to become “highly qualified” in several different subjects. Do you think that these provisions should be modified for special educators? If so, how would you advocate for this position at the federal level as the Superintendent of Public Instruction?
I believe in the spirit behind the “highly qualified” provisions – that all teachers must have a certain base of knowledge and skills, including our special educators. But we need to recognize that we cannot fit all teachers into the same mold. I am much more concerned about having a teacher be highly effective than highly qualified. Though there should be a minimum level of input, in terms of coursework or qualifying exams, all teachers should be evaluated and held accountable for being highly effective with their students. There has been some movement toward this approach nationally, and as Superintendent, I will encourage that shift.
Funding Questions – AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction
Do you think the funding structure of public education should change in Arizona? If changes are needed, please specify what type of changes you will propose and support.
Education is the single most important factor in determining what our future is going to look like. Our annual school funding should not be held hostage based upon bi-annual campaign posturing and political maneuvering, nor should it be as dependent on sales tax revenues, which fluctuate with the economy. While the Legislature has control over the budget, if I had the ability to unilaterally re-write the current school funding formula, I would decrease the sales tax as the primary revenue source for schools, designate public education our number one funding priority, and mandate providing concrete 5-year budgets with guaranteed minimum funding for our schools that is based entirely on need and not revenue.
Do you feel the current state funding formula is fair and equitable for all districts? If not, what specific changes would you propose and support?
No, I do not. I am very glad community organizations like the Arizona Business and Education Coalition have been investigating ways to change our funding formula to be more fair. I will support these efforts to move the Legislature to change our funding formula. As that effort is progressing, there will be some changes the Superintendent can make regarding funding. Under my direction, the ADE will survey the current state of our schools and truthfully evaluate programs to ensure that our tax dollars are being spent in an efficient and effective way. We will also conduct an honest needs assessment to determine where our schools are lacking and what resources they need to compete in the 21st century, and then submit a school budget request based entirely on need and not excess revenue.
Due to our district's low poverty, or "free and reduced lunch" level, do you understand the disparity that places CCUSD at a disadvantage for federal and grant application-based funding, and would you be willing to support legislation that would allow districts such as CCUSD in low-poverty areas to secure supplemental funding to reach curriculum or achievement standards that may be desired by the governing board? If so, what might those funding sources be? (please cite examples such as local prop tax, program fees, etc.)
I do understand the disadvantage CCUSD has in applying for federal and grant funding, though I also recognize and support the intent of the effort to get more resources into higher-poverty districts. That being said, I absolutely understand the desire to augment current funding levels to reach academic goals. My core focus is on building a system that is fair, innovative, and accountable. I am open to engaging in conversations around legislative changes so long as those changes will ensure continued fairness, innovation, and accountability. If CCUSD had a concrete proposal for supplementing their current funding levels, I would absolutely be willing to discussing it.
In considering an area like Cave Creek that does not receive as many benefits of federal/state funding, would you consider allowing a district a more flexible approach to managing their various buckets of budget dollars so available money can be used to benefit a greater cause rather than sit unused because the original intent no longer exists?
Arizona has a vibrant history of local control of schools, and this commitment to local control enables schools and districts to adapt to the unique needs of the community. As long as school districts, including Cave Creek, is using its resources in a fair, transparent, and responsible way that promotes greater student achievement, the Arizona Department of Education should honor the request of school districts and provide them with technical assistance, when possible, to be more flexible. The role of the Arizona Department of Education will be to encourage innovation, not to stifle it.
Please describe your level of support for school vouchers, how should they be used (if at all), to whom should they be given/used for, and how would you change the current system in place? Be specific.
I do not support school vouchers. I understand the parental desire to ensure one’s child is in the best possible academic environment, but I believe public dollars are best spent improving the academic environment of the public schools.
Do you feel the use of Private School Tax Credits and/or Vouchers compliments or undermines our public education system?
As stated above, I believe vouchers do not complement our public education system, nor do I believe Private School Tax Credits should continue as they currently stand.
The original intent of the school tuition tax credit law was to increase the number of students from low-income communities who are able to access the school that is the best fit for them, even if it is a private school. Unfortunately, as we have seen, that is not how the system has been used and thus, I do not believe that the program should continue as it currently stands.
I have three key values that will be a part of all of my decisions: programs and policies must be fair, innovative, and accountable. In order for me to support any continuation of the tuition tax credit program, the reformed program would have to demonstrate these three characteristics. If the following reforms were enacted, I would be willing to support the continuation of the tuition tax credits:
1) Financial need of students must be the primary consideration in awarding scholarships.
2) "Recommendations" cannot be considered in any way, shape, or form.
3) A state agency, perhaps the ADE, should be given oversight responsibility, and School Tuition Organizations (STOs) must make yearly, detailed accounts of where their donations came from and to whom the scholarships were given. Any STO failing to provide this accounting or failing to follow the previous two considerations would lose its designation as an STO.
I am under no illusions that making these three changes would put quite a few of the STOs out of business. But frankly, I believe that unless these organizations are actively working to provide more opportunities for the people in our community who need them, they need not be in business.
How do you feel about open enrollment? Specifically do you support it in it's current form and, if not, what modifications would you initiate and support?
I am in favor of open enrollment, including the current policy allowing individual school districts to define how and when open enrollment students will be admitted. One specific aspect of public school choice more generally I will strongly encourage is the development of more magnet schools to more fully engage our students in reaching their potential based on their interests.