ASU associate professor David Garcia poses next to one of his billboards promoting his running for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction at the Terry Goddard Law Office in downtown Phoenix on Aug. 21, 2014. Before coming to ASU, Garcia worked as Arizona's Associate Superintendent of Public Instruction for Standards. (Photo by Fabian Ardaya)
Candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction and ASU professor David Garcia is gearing up for the last few weeks of campaigning before the Nov. 4 elections and is betting on his experience as an educator to push him through.
Born and raised in Arizona, Garcia is the first in his family to attend college. The road he took to higher education was not conventional.
"I was not your best high school student and I just didn’t focus enough if things were not relevant," he said. "Coming out of high school, all of my procrastination got me a one-way ticket to Fort Benning Georgia to join the Army at the age of 17. My dad signed for me to go."
Garcia said he needed to grow up before heading off to college and took advantage of his experiences in the military, as well as the G.I. bill to make it happen.
"I was an infantryman and I had a great tour," he said. "I went to Korea a couple of times, Japan, Alaska, fought fires in Yellowstone, but I learned my lesson and took high school classes over again in the military. When I got to ASU, I had learned my lesson and was ready to go."
During his time at ASU as an undergraduate student, Garcia was named ASU Man of the Year in 1993 and graduated from Barrett, the Honors College.
Garcia said he only had one goal in mind after graduating from ASU: to become a professor, which he did at his alma mater.
"I’ve really enjoyed being a professor," he said. "Students are interesting and interested, and I have always enjoyed my time teaching and working with students. As a professor I spend a lot of my time doing research creating a national name for myself because ASU wants to compete nationally and professors are a really important part of that."
While working as a professor, Garcia won the NAE Spencer Fellowship from the National Academy of Education, which he said is one of the most competitive programs for junior faculty.
"That award has given me national exposure and the opportunity to participate with some of the brightest minds in education across the country," he said.
The exposure will be extremely helpful if Garcia wins the election, he said.
"We’re going to take that perspective and put ourselves in position to be leaders here in Arizona, which is what I really think we should be," Garcia said.
Arizona Education Policy Initiative director David Garcia is supporting funding for innovation as part of his campaign for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction. Garcia identified Common Core as one of the main issues in Arizona's education policy. (Photo by Fabian Ardaya)
Preparing for Elections
Garcia said his primary goal if elected is focusing on what needs to be changed and fixed in the education system.
"The main thing we need to focus on is measuring what matters," Garcia said. "We put a tremendous amount of attention on multiple choice standardized tests. Our schools get letter grades, and 96 percent of that letter grade is based on a multiple choice test, and I think we need to make a change there."
Many things can be changed to make the necessary improvements to schools and change the letter grade basis from standardized testing scores, he said.
"We need to get outcomes that will better prepare students for life after high school," Garcia said. "AP credits don’t count in our school evaluations, and I think they should. Also, certification in a programming language, I think, is a fantastic outcome given the job opportunities available for students with those technical skills and another which could be a great possibility for our students in Arizona is graduating with academic proficiency in more than one world language."
These are the outcomes that get students prepared for a life after high school and the outcomes that will put Arizona on the map, he said.
Garcia has been an associate professor at ASU and was the associate superintendent for Arizona, and he said he thinks these positions qualify him for the job.
"I know exactly what I am getting into since I have worked in education, and as an educator my primary area is teaching teachers, so I have a good understanding of what our educators need to be successful," Garcia said.
Garcia and his opponent, Republican Diane Douglas, don't agree on much. Garcia said he has an appreciation for the importance of public education in Arizona and Douglas does not.
"My opponent was on the school board, where for example she voted against funding increases," he said. "She voted against international baccalaureate programs and even disparaged our colleges of education, calling them perpetrators of fraud."
Qualified for the job
Julie Erfle, communication director for the Garcia campaign, said Garcia is probably the most qualified person to ever run for the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
"He’s an educator, and he understands what teachers need to be successful in the classroom," Erfle said. "He teaches educational leaders in his role as a professor and he has policy experience, and that is critically important because with the role of superintendent it is really one of influencing and implementing education policy. So having an understanding of policy and being able to implement it is critical."
Kristie Martorelli, the 2012 Arizona teacher of the year said she thinks Garcia is the right man to get public education on the right track.
"First of all, David has the background and experiences that have prepared him for the role," she said. "He is a native of our state and a father to two school-age children, so he has a very strong commitment to not only his own children but to all of the children of our state in both public and charter schools."
Garcia will be attending the Tempe Undergraduate Student Government event Sparking Democracy on Oct. 30 on the Tempe campus. He said he is really looking forward to speaking with students.
"I think it is really important that young people get to the polls," he said. "They have the power to change the state. They get it. They understand the importance of education and one of the big issues in this campaign is whether or not we are going to move education in Arizona forward, and the key group going to be affected by our education system and how it prepares them for the future is our young folks, our students."
Being an educator was Garcia's goal after graduating ASU, and he said he is going to have a lot of fun being around students at the event.
"It’s always fun to be around campus and my fellow Sun Devils," he said.
Reach the reporter at jshanco2@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @joey_hancock
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