Education is the great equalizer it
eliminates the gaps between opportunities and advancement its fully intended to
place students hopefully on an equal path towards prosperity and growth.
However, in America there is sadly still more work to do to make sure American
kids can participate in competing on a global stage.
According to statistics from Research.com
Overall, American students placed 24th in reading, 38th in mathematics, and
25th in science. The total average of the students' performance was 470. The
OECD average was 490, putting the U.S. students' academic achievement way below
many of the high academic achievement of their OECD peers.
Matt J. Navo serves as the Executive
Director for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE).
Navo’s knowledge and expertise in systems improvement comes from over three
decades of experience as a K-12 educator and leader. Navo served as the
Superintendent of Sanger Unified School District. Before assuming the role of
Superintendent, he was a special education teacher, secondary instructor,
counselor, resource teacher, junior high learning director, high school
assistant principal, elementary and alternative education principal, director
of special education, and area administrator.
Prior to his current role, Navo served
as the Director of Systems Transformation with the Special Education Policy and
Practice Division (SEPPD) at WestEd. He has experience working with districts
and schools to guide systems transformation by developing strategies, structures,
policies, and practices, aligned with the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)
at the state, county, and local levels, to close the achievement gap for all
students.
Navo’s expertise lies in aligning
systems, building capacity for continuous improvement, fostering collaborative
cultures and collective efficacy among teams, and establishing coherent and
efficient models for districts and schools. Navo has sat on various state-level
committees, boards, and work groups. Navo has been a Governor appointee to the
California State Board of Education (SBE) since 2019 and has served on the CCEE
Governing Board, first as the Governor appointee from 2015 to 2017, and later
as the Governing Board Chair from 2019 to 2021, appointed by the president of
the State Board of Education. He also served on the California Practitioners
Advisory Group (CPAG) and the Advisory Commission for Special Education, in
which he served as committee chair for the California Special Education Task
Force (Evidence-Based Practices).
Navo has been a keynote speaker and
trainer for systems improvement across the state, and has presented at over 100
different conferences on special education and school reform. He is the author
of Collective Efficacy in a PLC at Work (2021) and Demystifying MTSS, A school
and District Framework for meeting students’ academic and social-emotional
needs. Navo has contributed to various articles on school reform, systems
improvement, Response to Intervention (RTI), Professional Learning Communities
(PLC), and Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI), including ONE SYSTEM: Reforming
Education to Serve All Students, Report of California’s Statewide Task Force on
Special Education (2015).
He joined me this week to tell me more.
For more information:
https://ccee-ca.org/
