Eighty years ago, eight-year-old Sylvia Mendez, a Mexican American student, was told she didn’t belong at her local school. Her family fought back in court, and their victory paved the way for Brown v. Board of Education. A generation later, Puerto Rican educator and civil rights leader Antonia Pantoja organized her community block by block, helping win bilingual education for New York City students learning English.
As this Latino Heritage Month comes to a close, I keep coming back to these stories and what they have in common. Change starts with people willing to step up, and that’s the story of Latino families and educators everyday. We don’t wait for someone else to fix what’s broken, we see what needs to change and we get to work.
I know that story firsthand. I’m Cuban American, raised in a small farming community in Illinois, where my parents worked incredibly hard for me but had to navigate a school system that wasn’t built with families like ours in mind. For the past ten years at Latinos for Education, I’ve worked to make sure Latinos have a real place and voice in our country’s education system.
This work matters now more than ever. AI is shaping how children learn, and no one has decided yet whether Latino students will help shape that change or get left out. Our community is changing the face of America. Latino students now make up almost one in three U.S. public school students, and Latinos accounted for half of all growth in eligible voters from 2020 to 2024.
But here’s the hard truth: even after decades of work and investment, Latino students still aren’t getting the same opportunities to succeed in school. Across the country, 84% of nine-year-olds show basic math skills, compared with just 77% of Latino nine-year-olds. By age 13, the gap is even bigger: 70% of all students show basic math skills, compared with just 57% of Latino students. A system where the gap grows the longer a student stays in it was not built with that student in mind.
It’s not because we haven’t tried to fix it; we have tried a lot. What we haven’t done is listen closely enough to the families, students, and teachers who live this reality every day and ask them a simple question: if we were building this system for our children today, what would we build instead?
That’s not a radical idea. It’s what our country is supposed to stand for: people should have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. We are the parents packing lunches and checking homework. We are the teachers staying late. We are the students getting the education. And we are the voters who will shape what comes next.
We can keep trying to make a system work for our communities, or we can start building something better. We have an opportunity to shape what comes next, and here are three ways to get started.
- Make candidates earn our votes. Every election cycle, there’s plenty of talk about the Latino vote. But we’re more than a number in a poll. We’re families, parents, and communities with real experiences and ideas about what our schools need. Candidates at every level should spend time in our communities, listen to what families have to say, and help shape an education agenda around those needs. And that conversation shouldn’t end when the election is over.
- Ensure Latino families and educators have a say in what comes next. School leaders, nonprofits, advocates, and funders spend a lot of time talking about the future of education. But too often, Latino families and educators are left out of those conversations. The people who know our schools best should have a seat at the table when decisions are made and money is spent.
- Support the Latino teachers and leaders in our classrooms. One of the surest ways to build a system with Latino students in mind is to make space for Latino educators to lead. Massachusetts did this in 2024, passing the Educator Diversity Act, a law to strengthen the pipeline of teachers of color.
As Latino Heritage Month comes to a close, we’re reminded that celebrating our history also means carrying it forward. That’s what Latinos for Education is taking on with Visión 2050: building a vision for the future of education, made by and for Latinos. Starting this fall, we’re going straight to students, families, and teachers across the country. We’ll listen first, and build second. We refuse to let another generation wait for someone else to hand them a better system.
Sylvia Mendez was eight years old when she stood up for her right to an education. She didn’t do it to become part of history. She did it because she wanted something better. It’s a reminder to all of us that we have power. Now, it’s time for the Latino community to own our power, and shape the education system that comes next.
Amanda Fernandez is the CEO and Founder of Latinos for Education, the first national organization dedicated to advancing Latino leadership in education. Under her visionary leadership, the organization has expanded from a Boston-based nonprofit to a national leader in education policy, advocacy, and leadership development. Amanda serves on the Massachusetts Governor’s Latino Empowerment Council and previously co-chaired the education committee on Governor Healey’s transition team. She has been recognized with prestigious awards like the McNulty Prize Catalyst Fund and the Innovator of Color Award by ASU GSV. Amanda holds a Master of Science in Adult Education from Fordham University.
