Wesley Williams II is a senior research director in NORC’s Education & Child Development department, where he provides high-quality, customized resources and tools, strategic planning, implementation planning, humanizing policy and practice development, and gap analysis for states, organizations, districts, schools, and foundations.

Williams has authored guidance frameworks, gap analysis tools, monitoring tracking tools, and a host of professional learning modules. These resources support and inform the projects he co-creates with clients nationwide.

Williams has over 26 years of experience in providing technical assistance, customized professional learning, implementation and strategic planning, and thought leadership at the national, state, and local levels. Williams has served as a lead content facilitator and keynote speaker, and conducted planning for state and national forums, small meetings, and conferences using innovative adult learning processes and protocols.

Before joining NORC, Williams was a senior study director at Westat, where he designed and customized gap analysis tools, implementation planning, strategic planning, and professional learning (PL) series and projects for educators and senior leaders in states, districts, foundations, and schools including YES of San Antonio, Worthington Schools, East Hartford Public Schools, and state education departments in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, and Ohio.

Williams has been called on by national organizations and states to lead the content development and facilitate large discussions at national and state meetings/conferences, including NASDTEC (January 2016, June 2017, January 2018, June 2018), CCSSO (March 2017, St. Louis), West Virginia Department of Education (October 2017, Charleston), and Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (August 2017, Milwaukee). He also received invitations to present at the Georgia edTPA regional conference (February 2018), and to serve as a keynote speaker for the Salisbury University edTPA regional conference (June 2018) and the Out-of-School-Time Initiatives Conference (June 2018), respectively. In 2017, he gave the keynote address at the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY), A Clear Voice, A Collective Vision conference in Washington, D.C. Recently, Williams was invited to serve as the keynote speaker for the 2022 NASDTEC National Conference in Boston.

Williams is a skilled facilitator of Open Space Technology, Problems of Practice (PoP), and other collaborative group techniques. He developed a customized PoP protocol for the U.S Department of Education’s 2015 Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) project directors meeting and the TIF regional meetings in Austin and Washington, D.C., in September 2015. For the IDEA Data Center, Williams planned and facilitated a full-day Open Space Technology session for the 2015 national Big B conference in New Orleans. For the 2016 Title II, Part A directors meeting in Washington, D.C., he planned and facilitated two half-day Open Space Technology sessions. The i3 grant planning committee invited him to conduct three virtual meetings to introduce and conduct PoP sessions for the i3 grantees and conduct a PoP session at the national summer conference in July 2016. For the IDEA Data Center, he planned and facilitated PoP sessions for five national meetings representing nearly all fifty states and outlying territories in Kansas City (May 2016) and Savannah (June 2016), Orlando (February 2018), and Austin (March 2018).

Williams is also a historic dramatic performer and performs his Frederick Douglass one-man show and “Oh! Freedom” production that commemorates the Underground Railroad and spiritual nationwide. Before the pandemic, Williams performed annually in cities throughout Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Washington, and Maryland, as well as Washington, D.C.

In May 2020, Williams received the Communicator Award of Distinction for two videos he produced in collaboration with Westat Graphics staff. The first video, an animation titled “That Noble Title Teacher,” was honored in the Film/Video: Inspiration category, while the other video, “Multiple Ways of Speaking” (written by Williams), was honored in the Film/Video: Education category. Williams’ videos are among the suite of materials used in his work to support, co-create, and partner with his clients nationwide.