This is the first of a series of El Mundo profiles which highlight the work and contributions of several of Harvard University’s key Latino staffers. In this edition we get to know better Patty Díaz-Andrade: Director of Education and Outreach for the Strategic Data Project. Her organization is in the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University
By Chris Helms –
Y ou might be surprised where Harvard’s Patty Díaz-Andrade feels most comfortable: In a boxing gym alongside other women at the tough-guy fighter’s gym, Cyr-Farrell, in Quincy.
Her polite exterior masks not only a passion for boxing, but also for fighting to help fellow Latinos find academic success.
Díaz-Andrade hated math growing up in Washington, D.C. But she uses her hard-won training in data analysis to show school districts and states across the nation how to improve.
“We work to make numbers talk,” Díaz-Andrade says from her sunny Cambridge office where she is director of education and outreach for the Strategic Data Project (SDP). Her organization is in the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. SDP’s mission is to transform the use of data in education to improve student achievement.
She’s a former teacher in the New York City schools. And, the fellowship program that she oversees goes right back to the classroom. For instance, Fulton County (GA) fellows found that an alarming number of high school students in the district were getting into college, but not actually enrolling. So the fellows crafted a program to support students during that summer before college starts. In just one year, the number of low-income students attending college increased by 10 percentage points.
The importance of a helping hand, especially for first-generation college students, is something Díaz-Andrade knows personally.
When she arrived at Cornell University in New York, she found herself a fish out of water — and one of few Latinos at the prestigious college. But she worked to make connections with people through COSEP, a since-discontinued program to help so-called “minority” students succeed.
Díaz-Andrade earned her undergraduate degree in government and economics. No longer daunted by math, she went on to take a master’s degree at Columbia University in quantitative methodologies for the social sciences. This past May, she completed her doctorate in educational leadership at the Steinhardt Graduate School of Education, New York University.
Like many people, she says she lives in two worlds: The professional, academic world and the personal world revolving around her family.
Her parents came to Washington, D.C. from El Salvador. Not only did they raise Díaz-Andrade to become a successful academic, but they also raised a son, Luis, who is an immigration lawyer.
Most of the Díaz family is still near Washington. One day she and her Cape Verdean husband, Marcelino, may return, especially if children come along.
But Díaz-Andrade says she has gained so much from going to school away from her family that she’d like to see more Latino families consider it.
“Sometimes our community doesn’t realize the value of letting our kids go out of state for school, where they can get more money, where they can get a different experience,” she said.
For instance, in her family, she’s the only one among her female cousins who left D.C. for college.
“There was this resistance to allowing young girls to go off to college,” Díaz-Andrade said. “I say, aim as high as you can. If you can get in to a fancy school and they’re going to pay for your education, why would you say no?”
That’s not to say she finds it easy for Latinos in university environments. For instance, at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, she’s the only Latino who holds a management-level job. She’s says that’s not a criticism of the center, which has been extremely supportive, but more a reflection of society overall. She’d like to see more Latinas enter math and science fields.
“We need to ask our school systems to have higher expectations of what our kids can do while also helping to bridge the opportunity gap I and many others have experienced,” she wrote in a follow-up email after her interview with El Mundo. “We have so much potential and the parents who believe in the power of education!”
