Patricia D. López

Patricia D. López is the Associate Director of the National Latina/o Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP). She holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy with a portfolio in Mexican American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of a three-year study titled, “The Process of Becoming: The Political Construction of Texas’ Lone STAAR System of Accountability and College Readiness.” Dr. López is currently writing a manuscript that draws from five years (February 2008- July 2013) of ethnographic data on political actors, advocacy, and the Texas state legislative process to discuss the larger politics of state-level policymaking and the issues raised in this piece. Follow Patricia at her blog, “Public Policy and the Chicano/Latino Community.”