Dr. Angela Valenzuela

Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and at the University of Texas at Austin.

She is Director of the Texas Center for Education Policy. Previously, she taught in the Department of Sociology at Rice University in Houston (1990-98), and she was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston (1998-99). She completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University.

She is the author of the award-winning book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (1999), Leaving ChildrenBehind: How “Texas-style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth (2005), and Growing Critically ConsciousTeachers: A Social Justice Curriculum for Educators of Latino/a Youth (2016).

Dr. Valenzuela served as an expert witness on curriculum in Arce, et. al. v. Douglas,793 F. 3rd 968 (2015) where Mexican American Studies plaintiffs prevailed and the dismantling of Tucson Unified School District’s MAS program was found unconstitutional both in enactment and enforcement by Judge A. Wallace Tashima. 269 F. Supp. 948 (D. Ariz.2017), citing violations to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the First Amendment.

Currently, Dr. Valenzuela co-chairs the LULAC National Committee on Higher Education and is the Executive Director of the National Latina/o Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAPP), a consortium of ten institutions that enhances teaching for high school youth in Texas, California, Wisconsin, Chicago, New York, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Her most recent accomplishment is getting inducted into the 2021 cohort of the National Academy of Education. She also founded and operates an education blog titled, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas: http://texasedequity.blogspot.com/

Dr. Valenzuela co-founded Academia Cuauhtli, a cultural revitalization program of instruction in Spanish for fourth and fifth graders from five, East Austin ISD schools. Our partnership consists of a legal-official Memoranda of Understanding with collaborating institutions, including the City of Austin, our community-based organization, Nuestro Grupo, and, especially, the Austin Independent School District which covers most of the expenses associated with the academy.