Linda Navarrette, director of Project Moving Forward in UCR’s Graduate School of Education, participated in a panel discussion titled “Education Divide: Closing the Coachella Valley’s Achievement Gap,” at California State University, San Bernardino’s Palm Desert Campus on Wednesday, Sept. 14.
Hosted by the Desert Sun newspaper, the panel brought together educators, administrators, and community leaders from across the region to work collectively to help bridge the achievement gap that forms between different groups of students, with those from low income and minority families more likely to fall behind.
In one of three sessions during the event, Navarrette joined Kathleen Felci, assistant superintendent at the Desert Sands Unified School District, to speak about how poverty, lack of opportunities, and educational initiatives impact language acquisition in the early years.
Navarrette a former teacher, psychologist, and administrator, is the creator of Project Moving Forward, an interactive vocabulary development program that is closing the education gap between English-learners and non-English-learners, advantaged and disadvantaged students. The program is being implemented in the Moreno Valley Unified School District as well as other school districts in California and across the United States.