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Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana was confirmed as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the Department of Education by the U.S. Senate on July 24, 2009. In this position, she plays a pivotal role in policy and management issues affecting elementary and secondary education. She directs, coordinates and recommends policy for programs designed to assist state and local education agencies with improving the achievement of elementary and secondary school students. She helps ensure equal access to services leading to such improvement for all children, particularly children who are economically disadvantaged. She fosters educational improvement at the state and local levels, and provides financial assistance to local education agencies whose local revenues are affected by federal activities. She also serves as the principal adviser to the U.S. secretary of education on all matters related to pre-k, elementary and secondary education.

Prior to arriving at the Department, Meléndez served as superintendent of the Pomona Unified School District (Calif.) since 2006. During her tenure in this very diverse district serving 31,000 students, three-quarters of whom were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and 44 percent of whom were English language learners, she was directly responsible for the three highest increases in the Academic Proficiency Index in the district's history as well as the second highest gain in the API for all California school districts. Two high schools in the district were ranked in 2007 by U.S. News & World Report as among America's top 500 high schools out of 18,000 nationwide. She also designed and launched a mathematics and science magnet school and a charter school for grades 7 through 12 at-risk students. She created a health sciences and an engineering academy as well as a partnership with California Polytechnic University, among other universities, to create a health career pathway. In 2009, her success as an education leader was recognized by the American Association of School Administrators, which voted her California Superintendent of the Year.

From 2005 to 2006, Meléndez worked on district-level reform in her position as program manager at the nonprofit Stupski Foundation. Here she focused on creating high-performance learning organizations to raise student achievement and close achievement gaps. Her portfolio included the 23,000-student Pasadena (Calif.) School District and the 40,000-student Illinois School District U-46. She also served on the foundation's Executive Leadership Team.

From 1999 to 2005, Meléndez served as deputy and assistant superintendent and chief academic officer at Pomona Unified, where she redesigned instructional services to increase student achievement and support to school sites. In these positions she achieved a 50-percent decrease in the number of low-achieving schools as measured by California accountability standards.

Prior to her work at Pomona Unified, Meléndez was director of school-family initiatives at the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, where she oversaw grants for the Annenberg Foundation and implemented schoolwide accountability reform in 15 Los Angeles County school districts. From 1992 to 1997, she served as an educator in the Montebello and Pasadena Unified School districts, assuming the positions of director of instruction, principal, assistant principal and teacher. And from 1990 to 2002, she served in various faculty positions at universities in California.

Meléndez has been recognized frequently for her educational leadership. In 2009, she was named California Superintendent of the Year. In 2007, she was named Latina of Excellence, a national honor accorded to six Latinas "of great distinction in their fields" by Hispanic Magazine, receiving the Educationalist award. In 2006, Meléndez was selected to be a fellow in the Broad Superintendents Academy, a national honor awarded to 18 "outstanding, dynamic, entrepreneurial" public school leaders. In 2005, she was recognized as an Outstanding K–12 School Leader & Distinguished Partner for Educational Excellence by California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. And, in 2003, she was named Outstanding Educator of the Year by the Los Angeles County Bilingual Directors Association.

Meléndez earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, where she was in the Rossier School of Education program specializing in language, literacy and learning. She earned a bachelor's degree cum laude in sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She is married to Otto Santa Ana, a professor in the Department of Chicano Studies at UCLA.