Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon

Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon is an Associate Professor in the Leadership Studies department in the School of Education and the Faculty Director of the Center for Humanizing Education and Research. Her research focuses on educational law and policy as a site of political, economic, and cultural contestation and explores the ways that education law and policy further or impede efforts to create a more just society. Her passion and commitment to public education are informed by her work as an educator, lawyer, organizer, and mother.

Her courses provide educators and aspiring leaders with an opportunity to better understand the political and economic foundations of the educational systems they work within and against. Towards this goal, she teaches courses in Social Critical Theoretical Foundations, Advocacy and Policy, Pressing Urban Issues, Education Law, Organizational Systems, and Critical Policy Analysis.

• Education law and policy
• Political economy of K-12 education and education reform
• Civil rights and education
• K-12 school and district leadership

• Faculty Director, Center for Humanizing Education and Research (C-HER)
• Co-Director, Transformative School Leadership Program
• Policy Board Representative, USF Faculty Association

• PhD, University of California, Berkeley
• JD, University of Maryland School of Law
• EdM, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• BA, Economics and Biology, University of California, Berkeley

• Outstanding Long Policy Report in Educational Policy and Politics, American Educational Research Association, 2024

• National Academy of Education/ Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, 2015 - 2016

• Eugene Cota Robles Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 2009 - 2011

• DLA Piper Scholar, University of Maryland Law School 2006 - 2009

• Koon, D. S.-V., Jordan, C., & Philoxene, D. (2024). Mapping a (r)evolutionary education for a just future: Building on the educational lessons of the late Anthropocene. In William Pink (Ed). Innovative School Reforms: International Perspectives on Reimagining Theory, Policy, and Practice for the Future. Springer.

• Koon, D. S.-V., Haro, B. H., Chong, S., & Jordan, C. (2024). Challenging academic feudalism. In D. Philoxene, D. S.-V. Koon, & E. H. Fuentes (Eds.) (2024). Crafting homeplace in the academic borderlands. Teacher College Press.

• Koon, D. S.-V., Pham, H., Jordan, C., Chong, S., Haro, B., Harris, J., Huddlestun, D., & Prim, J. (2024). Racial capitalism and student disposability in an era of school discipline reform. American Journal of Education, 130(2). 

• Koon, D. S.-V. (2022). Critical education policy network analysis: Theoretical elaborations and methodological implications. International Journal of Educational Research, 115(2022), 102041. Special Issue: Stephen Ball. 

• Koon, D. S.-V., Chong, S., Frampton, M. L., Winn, L., Jordan, C., Haro, B. N., Prim, J., Huddlestun, D., Pham, H., & Harris, J. (2021). Beyond suspension decline: Transforming school discipline in California. The California School Discipline Project.  

• Koon, D. S.-V., Frampton, M. L., Chong, S., Perlstein, D., Winn, L., Faw, L., Pulido, L., Prim, J., & Musser, A. (2021). Suspension decline in California’s heartland: A Central Valley story. The California School Discipline Project.  

• Koon, D. S.-V. (2020). Education policy networks: Co-optation, coordination & commodification of the school-to-prison pipeline critique. American Educational Research Journal, 57 (1), 371 – 410. 

• Fuller, B., & Koon, D. (2013). Beyond hierarchies and markets: Are decentralized schools lifting poor children? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 647(1), 144-165.  

• Koon, D. (2011). Cal. Gov’t Code §11135: A challenge to contemporary state-funded discrimination. Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, 7(2): 239-263.