The Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable is a unique nonpartisan collaborative action group committed to achieving the statewide postsecondary attainment goal of 60 percent by 2030. The Roundtable brings together mayors from cities and towns across Arizona, as well as district superintendents and key staff, to share data, evidence-based and promising practices, and programmatic strategies that can help address local challenges affecting students’ educational and career success. Established in 2012, with an initial investment from the Helios Education Foundation, the Roundtable currently includes 54 policy and education leaders from 15 diverse municipalities.
Roundtable efforts focus on three key areas:
- Elevating the Mayoral Role in Education
Mayors bridge community and school system goals. They also build awareness of the essential importance of education issues to community wellbeing.
- Championing Local Initiatives
Roundtable members, in collaboration with school districts and community-based organizations, engage in strategic efforts to increase high school graduation and postsecondary attainment rates. - Producing Research and Reports
The Roundtable produces in-depth reports on the local and statewide economic and social impacts of addressing issues related to early learning, disconnected youth, and postsecondary access and success.
The Roundtable convenes three or more times annually. Meetings are designed to facilitate critical conversations, ideation, exploration of innovative strategies, examination of statewide initiatives, listening, and learning—all with the clear goal of empowering communities to progress toward better outcomes. Ongoing support from the Arizona Community Foundation and Helios Education Foundation is helping Roundtable members to initiate and expand early childhood education and college promise programs; understand the roles, responsibilities, and capacity needed to launch and sustain regional talent development networks; construct a sustainable regional talent development model; and advocate for these efforts.
Early Childhood Education and Care in Arizona
This 2022 Roundtable product was developed in collaboration with the Arizona Pre-K Alignment for Early Childhood Success Initiative and National League of Cities. The introduction describes how early childhood programs enable municipalities and their residents to thrive and explores significant early childhood issues for Arizona. Subsequent sections provide summary tables with data on select indicators of early childhood education and care need, access, economic impact, and workforce as well as consolidated snapshots of the data for each municipality featured in the tables. These snapshots can be extracted for use as stand-alone fact sheets for each municipality.
Arizona Mayors Education Dashboards
The 2018 Arizona Mayors Education Dashboards report presents profiles for each of the cities and towns whose mayors are members of the Roundtable. The profiles present data showing the estimated economic losses associated with high school non-completion and youth disconnection (young people who are neither in school nor working) in each locality. Read the 2018 Arizona Mayors Education Dashboards report. Read the explanatory guide that accompanies the report. Mayors throughout Arizona developed data-informed action plans to support improved outcomes in their cities.
View this video of WestEd’s Paul Koehler discussing the Arizona Mayors Education Dashboards and its positive impact.
Interested in Starting a Mayors Roundtable in Your State?
Complete the Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable contact form for information on how you can start a Mayors Roundtable in your state.