January 27, 2015 9:21 PM

Education Commissioner Williams willing to walk away from No Child Left Behind waiver

TEA is acting out of the ordinary in that the agency has spent decades doing specific work assigned – no more and no less – and now its willing to think about school district concerns and come up with out-of-the-box solutions.

Education Commissioner Michael Williams’ willingness to compromise with school administrators and board trustees on accountability issues was not always apparent in an informal question-and-answer session at Tuesday afternoon’s Texas Association of School Administrators’ Midwinter Conference.

Williams talked about gathering stakeholders to address the Education Department’s recent rejection of the state’s No Child Left Behind waiver. He talked about the addition of parents to advisory committees. And while Williams wasn’t necessarily enthusiastic about returning to an accreditation model that left accountability in the hands of school districts, he was open to change.

“I am committed to get the accountability system right, no matter what that system might be,” Williams told an auditorium of superintendents and trustees. “There is no doubt education is front and center in this session.”

But Williams also is a lawyer, and he offered some carefully weighed answers.

For instance, Hutto ISD Superintendent Doug Killian challenged Williams on his personal, if not professional, support of vouchers. “I struggle with the idea that the Party of Lincoln would propose vouchers,” Killian told Williams, offering an invitation for the commissioner to visit Hutto if he wanted to talk in detail about the downside of vouchers. “I struggle with that idea.”

The untested piece of this that hung over the room is that a new governor now leads the state. School leaders were often frustrated, even stymied, by platitudes offered by education officials. In years past, the commissioner’s advisory committees were stacked, more often than not, with people expected to rubber stamp ideas.

But the rumblings inside the Texas Education Agency these days, more often than not, are aimed at pitching solutions rather than maintaining status quo.

By Kimberly Reeves