Celebrating Dr. Pedro Noguera: Inaugural Inductee into the Multilingual Education Hall of Fame
Learn more about Dr. Pedro Noguera's transformative career rooted in empathy, scholarship, and unwavering advocacy for Multilingual Learners
Learn more about Dr. Pedro Noguera's transformative career rooted in empathy, scholarship, and unwavering advocacy for Multilingual Learners
The Multilingual Education Hall of Fame was created to honor visionaries who have not only advanced scholarship but have also transformed lives—leaders whose work ensures that the brilliance of multilingual learners is recognized, cultivated, and celebrated.
Dr. Pedro Noguera is one such educator—now celebrated as an inaugural inductee into the Multilingual Education Hall of Fame at NABE’s 2025 Conference. This honor reflects a career rooted in empathy, scholarship, and unwavering advocacy for multilingual learners. Through his decades of leadership, research, and public voice, Dr. Noguera has consistently reminded us that “the skills of the teachers must meet the needs of the students” and that access to opportunities is not an aspiration but a responsibility and a choice—and that honoring students’ languages and identities is central to building just and thriving schools.
Dr. Noguera currently serves as the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the Rossier School of Education and as a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. A sociologist by training, his research focuses on the ways schools are shaped by social and economic conditions and by demographic trends locally, nationally, and globally.
His scholarship is both deep and far-reaching. He is the author of 15 books, including A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K-12 Education (winner of the Association of American Publishers 2022 Prose Award, co-authored with Rick Hess) and City Schools and the American Dream: Still Pursuing the Dream with Esa Syeed. He has published over 250 research articles, book chapters, and editorials in leading journals, edited volumes, and major newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, and The Los Angeles Times.
For those of us working to support multilingual learners, Dr. Noguera has given us both language and vision to carry forward. He reminds us that language is not a barrier—it’s a bridge. That every child’s culture and identity must be honored, not erased, if we want true equity. His words call us back to what matters most: creating classrooms where students see themselves reflected, know they belong, ask hard questions and engage in meaningful and relevant learning.
He also serves on the boards of national and local organizations—including the Economic Policy Institute, The National Equity Project, The Nation ,and Partnership for Los Angeles Schools—and continues to influence how we think about justice, opportunity, and the role of schools in building stronger communities.
Dr. Noguera’s career has spanned the nation’s leading universities: Harvard, UC Berkeley, New York University, UCLA, and now USC. Beyond academia, he has shaped state and national education policy—serving as a trustee for the State University of New York, advising governors and state departments of education across the country, and in 2022, being appointed to President Biden’s National Commission on Hispanics. He also co-chairs California’s Black Student Achievement Taskforce.
His contributions have been recognized with election to the National Academy of Education, Phi Delta Kappa Honor Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received seven honorary doctorates and countless awards for his research, leadership, and advocacy—including being ranked first in the nation in influence and impact in the field of education by Education Week in 2023
What makes Dr. Noguera’s induction into the Multilingual Education Hall of Fame so powerful is not just the recognition of his remarkable career, but the way it calls us forward. He teaches us that equity is not a slogan—it is a daily commitment. His example reminds us that we cannot rest until every student, especially our multilingual learners, has the opportunity to thrive.
As we welcome him into the inaugural class of the Multilingual Education Hall of Fame, I feel both gratitude and inspiration. Gratitude for the decades he has spent shining a light on justice in education. And inspiration to continue this work with the same courage and conviction he has always modeled.
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We were proud to recognize and celebrate his induction at the 2025 NABE Conference, surrounded by educators, advocates, and leaders who share his vision for multilingual learners.
For more on the Multilingual Hall of Fame, check out Honoring a Visionary: Kathy Escamilla's Path to the Multilingual Hall of Fame