Danielle Gonzales and Education: It's Personal

For Danielle Gonzales, a graduate of the eighth cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, education has always been personal. Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Danielle worked diligently to make the most of her education. She realized from an early age that education would be the key to achieving the changes she desired, both on an individual and national level. Danielle did not attend the most well-resourced schools in the country for primary and secondary school, but she made the most of the resources available to her and earned college scholarships and went on to earn a college degree. 

Danielle saw many areas of inequality through her own experiences as a woman of color in the American public school system, as well as through her early work as an intern at the US Department of Education’s White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans during her college years. The discrepancy of opportunities available led her to major in Political Science at George Washington University, after which she intended to work on political campaigns. She believed then that working to create big policy changes in government would be the most effective way to begin to solve problems of inequality in the United States.

In her final year of college, Danielle joined the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign, returning to her home state of New Mexico to focus on voter outreach. Through the campaign, she learned about policy and messaging but also felt disillusioned by the political process and its likelihood of leading to lasting, effective change. Danielle took the time after the campaign to ask herself what she truly wanted to achieve with her work and to contemplate the scope she felt would be appropriate to make a meaningful difference.

This discernment process led her to return to her own education and realize that educational equity was her animating belief. She had experienced the discrepancies of America’s education system, having watched the system fail members of her own family. Driven by the reality of that injustice, she resolved that by becoming a teacher she could be responsive to the needs of all students, regardless of background.

This re-centering prompted Danielle to apply for ACE Teaching Fellows, where she taught for two years in Brownsville, Texas. Danielle worked with students from similar backgrounds to her own, and they could draw on her own journey as a model and inspiration. Danielle found success in Teaching Fellows and valued the opportunity to focus solely on creating an affirming community in her classroom. With time, though, Danielle again felt called to return to the broader education sector, with a renewed commitment to addressing inequity and injustice on a larger scale.

Danielle responded to this call by transitioning into advocacy work after she graduated from the Teaching Fellows Program with her Master’s degree. She moved to Washington, DC, working for Reading is Fundamental, a literacy organization in which she focused on reading motivation, family literacy, and family/community involvement in education. After her work with RIF, she took a management position with the national non-profit education and advocacy campaign called Pre-K Now, where she became a leader in Pre-K policy, advocacy, and program implementation. She continued in policy and advocacy as a Senior Program Officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, supporting K-12 education reform. She is currently employed with The Aspen Institute, where she leads policy efforts to improve public education by inspiring, informing, and influencing education leaders across policy and practice, with an emphasis on achieving equity for traditionally underserved students.

The common theme across these myriad positions has been Danielle’s commitment to equity through education. At RIF, she began a Latino outreach initiative to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate resources for Hispanic families. She led a Spanish outreach campaign at Pre-K Now, targeted toward increasing Latino family awareness of early learning benefits and opportunities. During her time at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Danielle’s work specifically addressed strategies to improve education for low-income and students of color. Now at The Aspen Institute, Danielle supports education leaders in articulating clear state actions and policies to address inequities in education. It is clear across all of Danielle’s work and in her personal beliefs that quality education should be available to all people.

Danielle Gonzales, ACE 8, served as an AmeriCorps member at Incarnate Word Academy in Brownsville, Texas. 

Interested in making a difference through education policy? Contact Andrew Whittington at  to learn more about ACE's Program for Educational Access and our Reform Leaders Summit.