E. Travis Collier is the executive director of School Supports at Elk Grove Unified School District.
Travis supervises the Curriculum and Professional Learning, Multi-Lingual Education, Student Improvement Support, and Grant Writing departments for the Elk Grove Unified School District, the 5th largest school district in California. These departments are responsible for providing professional development and training for all teachers and classified employees in the areas of curriculum, teaching and learning, English Language instruction, school transformational work, and grants to supplement programs in the district.
Travis initially enrolled in LMU's Ed.D. program to be more employable for a Superintendent position. However, he quickly learned to value the importance of research and understanding the history and background of a variety of social justice issues for different ethnicities and groups who have been historically disenfranchised and marginalized in the American educational system. In this current political climate of "anti-DEI", it is vital that social justice warriors continue to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure that history does not repeat itself and opportunities are available for all.
The title of Travis’s dissertation is Exploring the Factors Involved to Support African American Males' Success in Mathematics During the Early Grades. Most research has focused on the poor performance of African American males in math and the long-term effects on college and career readiness. To provide a counter-narrative, his study is a strengths-based focus on African American boys who have obtained grade-level success by the 3rd grade in math, based on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) test. His dissertation examines parental support, teacher expectations, and early mathematical opportunities as factors contributing to student success.
The Ed. D. program has built Travis’s capacity as a research-practitioner. As he became exposed to conducting research, he gained a new respect for the value of research and how it can enhance his effectiveness as an educator and impact the schools/districts that seek to close opportunity gaps for historically low-performing students. As a result of this social justice program, he views everything through a lens of finding the inequities in school systems and addressing them with the goal of changing public school systems and improving communities for black and brown students.