A Word of Thanks to Gina Hinojosa—and a Hope for Texas, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

 A Word of Thanks to Gina Hinojosa—and a Hope for Texas 

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 2, 2026

Gina Hinojosa, Martha Cotera & me

I have hesitated to write about this because I do not like to toot my own horn.

Those who know me know that I am much more comfortable lifting up the work of students, educators, communities, colleagues, and movements than calling attention to my own recognition.

But this one is special.

I write with a full heart and deep appreciation to thank State Representative Gina Hinojosa of House District 49, Democratic nominee for Texas governor, for authoring a resolution, passed by the Texas State Legislature, recognizing my inclusion in the 2025 Rick Hess Straight Up EDU Scholar Public Influence Rankings. This annual list recognizes 200 university-based scholars across the United States whose work has had significant influence on educational practice and policy.

I am grateful for the honor itself, but I am especially moved by the fact that this recognition came through the Texas Legislature and from Representative Hinojosa, whose public service has consistently reflected a deep commitment to children, families, public education, civil rights, and democratic governance.

The resolution notes my work as a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, my role as director of the University of Texas Center for Education Policy and the National Latino Education Research and Policy Project, my founding of this blog, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas, and my scholarship on urban education, minority youth, bilingual education, and educational justice. It also recognizes my book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, and the honors I have received across the years, including the Henry T. Trueba Award for Research Leading to the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education and the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Association for Bilingual Education.

To see this work named in a formal legislative resolution is humbling. Public scholarship is often a labor of persistence, conviction, and faith. It means writing, researching, testifying, organizing, teaching, and speaking in ways that do not always fit neatly within conventional academic metrics. It means believing that knowledge should circulate beyond the university; that communities have a right to research, history, policy analysis, and critical interpretation; and that educational equity is not an abstract ideal, but a public obligation.

For more than two decades, this blog has sought to serve precisely that purpose. It has been a public archive, a policy resource, a space of reflection, and a site of democratic engagement for those committed to educational justice, bilingual education, Ethnic Studies, academic freedom, and the freedom to learn. In that sense, this recognition is not mine alone. It belongs to the many students, educators, parents, scholars, community leaders, advocates, and organizers whose struggles and insights have shaped my work and given it meaning.

I also want to say a special word about Representative Hinojosa herself. Gina Hinojosa has long been a principled and courageous advocate for public education and for a Texas that honors the dignity of all its people. As a civil rights and labor attorney, former Austin ISD school board president, and state legislator, she has brought intelligence, moral clarity, and a steady commitment to the public good into every arena of her service.

I truly hope—and expect—that Gina Hinojosa will be Texas’ next governor. Texas needs leadership rooted in care, fairness, public education, democratic accountability, and respect for the diverse communities that are the future of this state. Her authorship of this resolution is, for me, not only a personal kindness, but also a reflection of the kind of leadership she offers: one that sees education as central to democracy and recognizes the scholars, teachers, students, and communities working every day to defend it.

So, thank you, Representative Hinojosa, for this generous recognition and for your continued service to Texas. I receive this resolution with humility, gratitude, and renewed commitment to the work ahead.

At a time when public education, academic freedom, bilingual education, ethnic studies, and truthful curriculum are all under attack, such recognition matters. It reminds us that the work of educational equity is not marginal. It is central to the future of Texas. It is central to democracy. And it is work that we must continue together.

And that means showing up—not only in classrooms, community meetings, hearings, and public conversations, but also at the ballot box. As November approaches, I hope we will all make sure that we, our families, friends, neighbors, students, former students, and loved ones of voting age are registered, informed, and ready to vote. Democracy is not self-executing. It depends on our participation, our vigilance, and our willingness to act on behalf of the Texas we know is possible.

Faculty Members Stella Flores, Denisa Gándara and Angela Valenzuela Ranked as Influencers in Educational Practice and Policy

Friends:

Rick Hess Straight Up (RHSU) annually publishes in Edweek rankings of top influencers in education (see 2023 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence: Top 10 Lists). Congrats to all 200 scholars that made the list, and particularly to my fellow colleagues in the College of Education at UT, namely, Dr. Stella Flores and Dr. Denisa Gándara for making it to the list. 

My sense is that most of us aren't actually trying to make "the list," but rather that we're all working hard trying to influence positive change at multiple levels, meaning, local, school district, city, state, and national levels. Thanks to the RHSU team for doing the hard work of generating this annual list and thanks to the College of Education at UT-Austin for posting this notice. Getting acknowledged in this way is affirming, especially considering just how hard we all work.

-Angela Valenzuela

Faculty Members Stella Flores, Denisa Gándara and Angela Valenzuela Ranked as Influencers in Educational Practice and Policy

By Kendall Payne

Jan. 5, 2023

The College of Education congratulates Department of Educational Leadership and Policy faculty members Stella Flores, Denisa Gándara and Angela Valenzuela for being named to the 2023 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Ranking list.

Each year, 200 university-based scholars make the list and are scored in nine publicly available metrics including their Google scholar score, book points, highest Amazon ranking, syllabus points, education press mentions, web mentions, newspaper mentions, congressional record mentions and Twitter score. According to RHSU, these rankings reflect, in roughly equal parts, the influence of a scholar’s academic scholarship and their influence on public debate as reflected in old and new media.

Stella Flores is an associate professor and examines the effects of state and federal policies on college access and completion outcomes for low-income and underrepresented populations including immigrant and English learner students. 

Denisa Gándara is an assistant professor and examines the development of higher education policy decisions and the effects of these decisions on students who have been excluded from and underserved in higher education. An additional line of research she explores is how various approaches to funding colleges and universities might promote or hinder social equity.

Angela Valenzuela is a professor and specializes in urban education from a sociological and multicultural perspective, with a focus on minority youth in schools, particularly at the K-12 level. 

David Yeager, associate professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts, was also named to this year’s list. 

 

Honored to Appear Again in Rick Hess' Straight Up 2020 List of Public Influencers in Education in the U.S.

Link here.

Hmm.  It looks like I was "more "influential" in 2020 (ranked at 103) than in either 2019  (114) or 2018 (148), according to Rick Hess' Straight Up (RHSU) 2020 list of public influencers in education in the U.S.  Very cool!  According to Hess:

Simply being included in this list of 200 scholars is an accomplishment, given the 20,000 or more who might qualify. The list includes the top finishers from last year, augmented by "at-large" nominees chosen by the 29-member selection committee (see yesterday's post for a list of committee members, an explanation of the selection process, and all the salacious methodological details).

I am listed again as has having a high rank on "syllabus" which I take to mean that my work appears on a lot of syllabi in college classrooms throughout the U.S.  I'm glad that lots of graduate students are reading my work.  Wish they had a category for blogs but then not all academics—perhaps even very few—actually manage blogs.  Oh well...

It's not like I'm trying to be influential, so to speak, but rather to influence positive change.  By this, I mean that I never set out to "be well known," but rather to just do good, meaningful work that helps to make the world a better place.  So I'm very gratified to see that my focus is well received by others.

It also pleases me to see the impact that my colleagues are having since education is of such vital importance to the future of our country and the planet.

Thanks to my former student, Sandra Telles, for sharing this with me. 

Thanks to Rick Hess and his team, as well, for doing the hard work of generating this list.

-Angela Valenzuela

Honored to Make it to Rick Hess' Straight Up 2018 List of Public Influencers in Education in the U.S

Wow!  I am deeply honored to make it to Rick Hess' Straight Up (RHSU) 2018 list of public influencers in education in the U.S.  I am listed has having a high rank on "syllabus" which I take to mean that my work appears on a lot of syllabi in college classrooms throughout the U.S.  Very cool. 
  
I appear to be the only person at a Texas university on the list—which is interesting unto itself. 

I'm also one of only 6 Latinas, too (my count)—and among only a few influencers of color.  We have to do something about that! 

The other 5 Latinas are Drs. Patricia Gandara, Sylvia Hurtado, Kris Gutierrez, Estela BenSimon, and Stella Flores. While these numbers need to grow, I'm happy to be in such amazing company!

I'm mostly encouraged to see all the great work that is getting done around the country. 

Thanks to Dr. Victor Saenz, my Department Chair, for alerting me to this.

Angela Valenzuela

@VictorSaenzPhD
@vlnzl
@educationweek 
 

The 2018 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings

« The 2018 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Scoring Rubric | Main | 2018 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence: Top Tens » 

By Rick Hess on January 10, 2018 8:00 AM | Edweek

 

Today, we unveil the 2018 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, identifying the university-based scholars in the U.S. who are doing the most to shape educational practice and policy. Simply being included in this list of 200 scholars is an accomplishment, given the tens of thousands who might qualify. The ranked scholars include the top 150 finishers from last year, along with 50 "at-large" nominees chosen by the 31-member selection committee (see yesterday's post for a list of committee members and all the salacious methodological details).

Here are the 2018 rankings (scroll through the chart to see all names and scores, or click the link below the chart to view the table in a new tab). Please note that all university affiliations reflect a scholar's institution as of December 2017. The bottom line: This is a serious but highly imperfect attempt to nudge academe to do more to recognize and encourage scholarship which engages the real world of practice and policy.

Go to table in a new tab.

 
Without further ado, let's get to the results. The top scorers? All are familiar edu-names, who have authored influential works and played outsized public and professional roles. Topping the rankings, once again, was Stanford University's Linda Darling-Hammond. Rounding out the top five, in order, were Harvard's Howard Gardner, U. Penn's Angela Duckworth, U. Wisconsin's Gloria Ladson-Billings, and NYU's Diane Ravitch. The rest of the top ten included Stanford's Larry Cuban, Temple's Sara Goldrick-Rab, U. Penn's Marybeth Gasman, Stanford's Jo Boaler, and the University of Virginia's Carol Ann Tomlinson.

Harvard's Dan Koretz made the biggest single leap from last year, climbing 132 spots to 20th place. His rise was fueled by the success of his much-discussed University of Chicago Press book, The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better. Others making especially big jumps from 2017 included Harvard's Stephanie M. Jones and David J. Deming, Stanford's David F. Labaree, and Michigan State's Barbara Schneider. Also notable was Stanford's Raj Chetty debuting at 14th, on the back of his high-profile work on equality of opportunity and college mobility.

Stanford University and Harvard University had the most ranked scholars. Stanford placed six scholars in the top 20 and Harvard four. U. Penn also placed multiple scholars in the top 20. When it came to overall representation, Harvard led the way with 24 ranked scholars. Stanford was second, with 20, and Columbia was third, with 14. All told, 55 universities had at least one scholar make the cut.

A number of top scorers penned influential books of recent vintage. U. Penn's Angela Duckworth's best-seller Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance continues to do exceptionally well. A few other books that did especially well were Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America; Harvard Dean Jim Ryan's Wait, What? And Life's Other Essential Questions; and Jo Boaler's Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas.

As with any such ranking, this exercise ought to be interpreted with appropriate caveats. Given that the ratings are a snapshot, the results obviously favor scholars who published a successful book or big study last year. But that's how the world works. And that's why we do this every year.

A few scholars tended to lead the field in any given category. For those of you keeping score at home, here's some highlights:

More than 40 scholars maxed out on Google Scholar. When it came to book points, fifteen scholars maxed out, including Darling-Hammond, Gardner, Ravitch, Larry Cuban of Stanford, and Carol Ann Tomlinson of the University of Virginia. Duckworth and UC-Berkeley's Richard Rothstein finished first and second in Amazon points, with 20.0 and 19.9 respectively. Fourteen scholars maxed out on syllabus points, including Ladson-Billings, Stanford's Sam Wineburg, and UT-Austin's Angela Valenzuela.

As far as attention in the education press, Darling-Hammond, Duckworth, and Temple's Sara Goldrick-Rab topped the charts. When it came to mentions in mainstream newspapers, Goldrick-Rab took the top spot, with Stanford's Raj Chetty and U. Penn's Marybeth Gasman not far behind. In terms of web presence, over a dozen scholars received the maximum score, including Stanford's Sean Reardon, Harvard's David Deming, and Marc Lamont Hill of Temple. When it came to social media, Ravitch and Lamont Hill posted the top Klout scores for the second year in a row.

If readers want to argue the construction, reliability, or validity of the metrics, go for it. I'm not sure that I've got the measures right or how much these results can or should tell us. That said, I think the same can be said about college rankings, NFL quarterback ratings, or international scorecards of human rights. For all their imperfections, I think such efforts convey real information—and help spark useful discussion.

That's what I've sought to do here. Meanwhile, I'd welcome suggestions for possible improvements and welcome thoughts, questions, and suggestions. So, take a look, and have at it. And, don't miss Ed Week's special commentary package on the RHSU rankings—including a lively discussion of what happens when scholarly engagement in public debate ceases to be a good thing, how we can tell, and what can be done about it. Tune in to see what Wisconsin's Diana Hess, UCLA's Pedro Noguera, Seton Hall's Robert Kelchen, Arkansas' Pat Wolf, and yours truly have to say on that score.