Breaking into public policy circles for the benefit of underserved communities

Stella M. Flores writes about how she learned to participate in the American political process through lessons from her immigrant family. As a quantitative scholar, she documents the commitment to rigorous, evidence-based research on equity noting that not all datasets are without politics or bias. From this perspective, the story of the Latino in the US has only recently begun to be collected. The author describes her development as a female scholar of color in the field of education policy, an identity informed by her experiences growing up in South Texas. She credits role models, mentors, and generational impact from educational opportunity as key reasons for engaging in scholarship aimed to help improve educational attainment rates for underserved students. She argues that regardless of methodological tradition, scholars working toward improving the educational trajectories for all students are in many ways activists for the common good and not necessarily unobtrusive analysts.