[00:00:15] Amy H-L: I’m Amy Halpern-Laff.
[00:00:16] Jon M: And I’m Jon Moscow. Our guests today are Ansharaye Hines, Assistant Director of Career and Technical Education and Curriculum at the Center for Black Educator Development, and Mimi McKee, Director of External Relations at the Center. We’ll be talking with Ms. Hines and Ms. McKee about the work of the Center and about the challenges and goals of Black educators. Welcome, Ansharaye and Mimi.
What is the Center for Black Educator Development?
[00:00:43] Mimi M: Yeah, I can take it away. The Center for Black Educator Development is a nonprofit organization that was established in 2019 by our CEO and founder, Sharif El-Mekki. Our mission is to rebuild the Black teacher pipeline, and we do that through a variety of pillars and programs.
Our three pillars are teaching pathways, which Ansharaye can speak more to; professional learning grounded in cultural pedagogy; and then our last pillar is public policy and advocacy. I’d probably say that’s one of the most important pillars because without conducive policies in place, we wouldn’t be able to do any of the work that we’re doing.
So that’s a little bit about us. We are a national organization. Our flagship programming takes place in Philly, but we have expanded into other regions across the nation and hopefully we’ll continue to expand in the years to come.
[00:01:32] Ansharaye H: Absolutely. To pick up on where Mimi cued me in, I work primarily with our curriculum on our programs team. There are a number of programs that we are currently focusing heavily on as part of our efforts to rebuild the Black teacher pipeline, our flagship program being Freedom School Literacy Academy. It is a teacher training and development program for high school and college students who are hoping to enter the profession. All of those students are paired with teaching mentors and coaches, and they have the opportunity to teach, focusing primarily on early literacy for kindergarten through rising second grade or rising third grade students. In addition to that, we have Teaching Academy, which is our year-round high school-focused program; four years of intentional development, career and technical education, and apprenticeship opportunities for young people in schools who are expressing interest in education. But also young people who haven’t thought of it yet as a possibility and are using this as an opportunity to be introduced to the profession, or those folks who attempt to or have a desire to continue on. We engage them as part of our fellowship where they have the opportunity to get financial assistance for school and will also continue to collaborate with us into their secondary and post secondary years. Those are our programs.
And I think for those of you are wondering why we exist, we know that there’s tons of research out there (I’m happy to share some reports after this). There’s a lot of research that shows that when Black students have access to effective Black teachers that typically reflect their racial identity and experiences and worldwide views, they do see a future full of possibilities and potential and they perform better as a result. More specifically, we know that when Black students have access to at least two Black teachers in elementary school, they’re 32 percent more likely to go to college. Those types of stats really serve as our North Star for why we do this work. We know it matters. I’m a former Black teacher myself. I’ve had Black teachers across my entire educational journey, and I know that I’m smarter and stronger and more effective and a better citizen of the world as a result of their teaching traditions.
[00:03:53] Amy H-L: You speak about education as a justice issue. Could you talk about that?
[00:03:59] Mimi M: I’m going to let Hines take it away.
[00:04:01] Ansharaye H: Sure, so education theoretically is posed as a vehicle for social uplift and is something that is mandatory for all of the young people who are currently growing up in the United States of America. But unfortunately, everybody is not afforded the same quality of education. Sometimes their quality is affected by the place where the school was located, the ability of their family to be able to bring in additional resources or support. And in some of the most nefarious cases, there are intentional defunding or de-resourcing of schools and of teachers specifically. That deeply affects the quality of education that young people get.
And in a lot of these cases, the people in our country who have the least amount of opportunity starting out, they are usually more lower income communities. Communities of color are deeply affected by these changes and the shifts that happen in the policy arena, which is why Mimi pointed it out again as something that is deeply important.
So our attempt to be able to provide at the least a band of teachers who are Black teachers, that are highly qualified, that understand the current educational context and are committed to acting on the educational justice issues that exist currently, provides these young people with a shelter within which to be able to learn and have higher chances of getting a quality education, despite the conditions that they may currently be facing in their communities and in their schools.
[00:05:35] Mimi M: Yeah, and we often say that we are an organization that is working to achieve racial justice and educational equity, because we understand that a lot of the work that we are doing is to right the historical wrongs. It is important to point to historical moments that have contributed to why we’re in this position that we’re in today, where, unfortunately, it’s the reality is most students will go throughout their entire educational journey without a single Black teacher. And we know that landmark cases like Brown v. Board, while they did have their positive moments, there were some unintentional consequences, one of those being that it completely dismantled the Black educational capital that we once had. We had a slew of Black educators, Black administrators, and other professionals working in school systems and caring for those children that look like them coming from very similar communities. But that case, unfortunately, decimated the workforce when it came to Black teachers in particular, and that is all intentional, and that’s why we say we need policies that are conducive to rebuilding the Black teacher pipeline, and we use that word rebuild very intentionally because it did exist at one point in time. And once again, we just have to be able to tell the truth about moments in history that have contributed to why we’re here.
[00:06:53] Jon M: Speaking of policy, the late Bob Moses spoke with us about a campaign for quality education as a constitutional right. What does that mean in practice to talk about it as a constitutional right?
[00:07:08] Mimi M: Hines, didn’t you all do [inaudible] with our high school students around this book?
[00:07:13] Ansharaye H: We did read the book and the students were very encouraged to act. At that point, we were working with students across the country and a lot of them started to engage locally with work around equitable schools and equitable funding, but what Bob Moses is pointing out, of course, is the legacy, as Mimi started to gesture towards, of the intentional disenfranchisement of Black communities, of communities in general, who have been held back from enjoying what might be considered the promise of liberty, pursuit of happiness, justice for all, in this country. And some of that has happened through the intentional denial of access to education, through segregation, through the way that during enslavement, specifically for Black people, the practice of learning was unlawful and punishable by dismemberment, maiming, death, all sorts of things.
There is a very specific sort of history that Black people and people of African descent in America face when thinking about education, access to it and the quality of life that is afforded to you when you are able to fully take advantage of and benefit from quality systems of education. So the issue of education is pointed to… Many people have called it the justice issue of our age, but as part of what really seems like an intentional move to right the historical wrongs and guarantee according to what is laid out as part of the values of the country in the Constitution, the right or the ability for everybody to be able to enjoy those promises. So that is how I would speak about quality education as a constitutional right, which it currently is not. There is no guarantee that everybody will get one, but in order to achieve the ideals, it would help greatly if there was a guarantee that in short everybody could get one.
[00:09:05] Jon M: I know that there was a case in Rhode Island, I believe, where people brought a suit in federal court asserting that, you know, students were not getting a quality education. And the judge ruled basically that everything they said was absolutely correct but that under the rulings from the Supreme Court, he had to throw the case out of court because there was no federal constitutional right to it. And I know that in a number of states, people have brought suits under state constitutions, New York being one of those, for example, where it then took decades to try to get the legislature to actually allocate the funds that the court said that students were entitled to. Is this an area that you’ve been working in, in terms of either lawsuits or organizing in communities around how to actually force the issue as a constitutional right?
[00:10:06] Ansharaye H: We’ve done a little bit of work in Pennsylvania around the advocacy piece in particular, for equitable funding of public schools in general. I know that there was a case brought up, I think it was last year or maybe the year before, that we’ve been involved in a very low levels, but we are just trying to make sure that we are able to advocate for equitable funding for our under-resourced schools. And we understand that there’s some reckoning that needs to take place. And once again, you have to also understand, if you’re not willing to admit the historical wrongs, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we can get students in our communities the proper education that they deserve, honestly.
So there’s a lot of work to be done, but we’ve been, like I said, supporting the advocacy around this in Pennsylvania. Absolutely. And for some of the students that we work with, the high school students we work with year round in Teaching Academy, some of them have taken trips to the capital, to Harrisburg. They’ve testified on the steps. They have been visited by city council members, senators, their representatives. I’m excited about the opportunities that those young people have to engage specifically around this issue of equity in schools and equitable funding as well as other educational issues related to teaching, related to opportunities for students who are student teaching to be able to get funding, preparation for teacher pathways, the existence of the current CTE program in the state of Pennsylvania that allows for this Teaching Academy, some part of our Teaching Academy work to happen. A lot of that has been going forward and I’ve personally, again, been really encouraged by our work in part of building awareness among young people of the decisions that are being made around them and oftentimes without their voice. So when they have the opportunity to exercise voice and be able to become agents in their educational experience and not just the people who are being acted on, they’re taking advantage of that. So that’s really exciting. And I’m really excited to see what skills they continue to develop and the things that they continue to commit to as part of their work, potentially as future educators as well.
[00:12:19] Amy H-L: What are some of the challenges that Black teachers face on a daily basis?
[00:12:24] Ansharaye H: Yeah, I’ll speak to this. I’m going to draw a little bit from my own experience and story that I’ve told over and over, parts of the story that I’ve told over and over. As a Black teacher, depending on the institution that you find yourself in, you’re usually fighting multiple battles on multiple fronts. There’s not a high chance that you will have a large community of other Black teachers on whom to lean within your building. So there is, of course, the fact that you have to exist in what can sometimes be a hostile environment in defense of your own identity and the defense of things that you understand to be valuable, equitable, and in the best service of all students, but specifically Black students, because of the way that you have experienced your own educational process. You have to advocate for those things. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to defend yourself. You have to defend your students.
So there’s this two-way. Just working to be good at your role, working to show up for your students, being able to be effective for them socially, emotionally, intellectually. And doing the advocacy and doing the work and building the space. And getting into the righteous disagreements in order to try to make sure that this school environment itself is a safe place and is a quality place where education can happen for the young people, but also a place where you can teach and be able to exist as a Black teacher in a particular type of context with a particular sort of mindset. Obviously, it’s unrealistic to expect a single Black educator to be able to turn a school around. It can even be a task just to survive by oneself.
[00:14:10] Jon M: What are some of the ways that Black educators can survive and prosper and hopefully be able to change the environments around them, both at the school level and even at the district and higher levels?
[00:14:35] Ansharaye H: Yeah, I think one of the things that one of my mentors shares with me often as I’m engaged in my own work is that individuals don’t win against institutions or individuals can’t fight institutions. Like you said, collectives win and other institutions win. So part of our work, one of the things that’s really valuable about what we do is that we are bringing young people through our programming in cohorts and in classes and in groups that allow them to be able to be connected to each other, wherever they are, wherever they graduate from, wherever they end up teaching. We are intentionally building these relationships and providing them and surrounding them with mentorship opportunities and exposure to these different networks, including our Black male educators, convening a conference that happens annually. So we are cultivating a community of resources, of mentors, of relationships that these folks can lean on because of the environment, because we know that the individual won’t stand without a horizontal network or even just a multidirectional network of people on whom they can lean for expertise, support, encouragement, relief. Just that shared institutional or experiential knowledge that will allow them to really go far in their careers as educators, which has also been something that’s concerning regarding retention, regarding longevity. Because you are burning literally your candle on both ends, it can be easy to burn out.
So we are doing through the implications of our work, in the way that we work our model, building communities that will resist that, and building the institutional relationships that will allow for that institutional change as far as schools and the place itself is concerned, to really shift.
[00:16:24] Mimi M: Yeah, I’d also like to add that I think the Center has done a really good job of internalizing the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.” I think that is a component, an essential component, of our work. Community building is essential, and we understand that it also has to be intergenerational. And so throughout all of our programming, you’ll notice that there are veteran and seasoned educators pouring into our new educators and then our new educators are pouring into their young scholars. And so that is something that is a common theme across every single one of our initiatives.
And one of the other ways that we want to think about supporting educators is centering their voices, making sure that they are at the table when decisions are being made about the very things that impact them and their students. They are some of the best, if not the best, advocates for their students and their communities. And so we want to make sure that their voices are being meaningfully represented and not in a way where we’re like, okay, we surveyed them. That’s it. We got it. But actually making sure that they’re a part of this process of being a change agent within their local communities. That is something that we focus on. And we do say that we are creating future leaders. Like that is a huge thing that distinguishes our programming from others is that we are building community leaders by way of education.
[00:17:40] Jon M: So Asharaye, you mentioned in the beginning, you ran through some of the teaching pathways, which obviously speaks to what Mimi was just talking about. Could you both perhaps just talk more about some of these in more detail and what the effects you’ve seen on both the teachers and the young people, flesh it out a little bit. It sounds as though it’s just like a really critical part of what your work is, and especially this intergenerational part.
[00:18:11] Ansharaye H: Sure. I’ll start with Teaching Academy. It is our four-year teacher development and career and technical education program. In the models where we have implemented the program, we are working up from 9th grade. And at one of our partner sites, all of the 9th graders at that school experience teaching academy and that first year is an exploration of the relationship between education and society, but also an opportunity for young people to talk about and exercise their voices, in many cases for the first time, regarding their educational experience, what they’re seeing, what they understand, and what they would like to create campaigns around in order to shift the educational environment.
We have had some, some really beautiful and exciting campaigns come out of that. One of the most striking for me was right after the pandemic, we had a cohort of young people expressing concern about mental health and the transition back to school for those young people in the way that they felt that they had not been considered that their humanity had really not really been taken into consideration because there just needed to be this push to get everybody back in school so the economy wouldn’t collapse and their parents could go back to work. But me as a human being, like having lived through this, this world changing once-in-a-generation, hopefully, fingers crossed, disaster, really just having to just get back into the, the swing of things without really thinking about what an on ramp would look like, what sort of recuperation had to happen of the skills, of the social capacity, all of that. So they built a series of wellness days that they wanted to institute for teachers, for the young people, but also they had a lot of really critical and engaging conversations. They engaged in research and did surveying and had focus groups among other students to really get some of the information out and give young people the opportunity to really express what they were feeling and what they were thinking. They turned all of that into something actionable that had an impact on their school environment, in conversation with administrators that were at the school and the teachers as well.
So that’s been something that happens every year. We bring in a new cohort of nine creators and they identify the things that are important to them. That’s been really encouraging, especially because when we are approaching young people about teacher education, or just the possibility of becoming a teacher, our program is unlike many other career exposure programs, because they see teachers every day where you might have to go away from your school to shadow a doctor or shadow an engineer or someone else. I’m seeing a teacher in front of me every day as a student. Now, the work of the Center is to make that look appealing despite, or maybe regardless of what they might be seeing every day, given the context of just their educational experiences and what teachers themselves are going through.
It’s very encouraging when we get our data at the end of that to see increases in the desire to teach. After they’ve had their experiences with us, and after they’ve had the opportunity to have agency after they’ve had the opportunity to teach themselves, which is something that happens in the 11th and 12th grade years of our program, they’re paired very directly with a mentor teacher. Some students we’ve had this year have taught their peers. I have an 11th grader who was a teaching assistant in an 11th grade class. I’ve had some who are in middle school, which is its own fun experience. So they got to experience what it’s like to be a middle school teacher and they express being changed by that. They express understanding a different, having appreciation for a different perspective on what it means to be a teacher in a school and how to negotiate relationships, how to make sure that.
Everybody in the class is learning and is engaged and that there’s a sense of community being built and also again, specifically from the lens of what it means to build that space for students in your classroom, who may be among the most marginalized in that school community. So Teaching Academy, the pipeline is working, we’re seeing retention, we’re seeing an increase in interest. We’re seeing these young people really excited about engaging with our summer programming, which is our Freedom School Literacy Academy, as well as interest in taking advantage of our fellowship opportunities and all those things. Just seeing the fruits of the labor, but also seeing the immediate impact and the opportunities that our students have to really have agency voice impact and choice in their educational experience has been really wonderful. It’s been wonderful.
Also in order to be eligible for the fellowship that I’m sure I mentioned, they also have to commit to going to college and commit to being enrolled in an education prep program. So there is an interest in attending college that we’re seeing as a result of the programming as well.
[00:23:15] Jon M: Could you talk a little bit more about the Freedom School Literacy Academy?
[00:23:21] Mimi M: Freedom School Literacy Academy is a continuation of the movement from Freedom Summer 1964 and the Freedom Schools, which folks may be aware that Bob Moses was deeply involved in and central to as one of the organizers of that whole project. So we hold deeply as part of the core values of our work generally as an organization, this idea of servant leadership. And the idea of being able to be activated around change and around impact, but not from a position of coming in as the authority. From the position of being able to really organize, storytell, activate, and then work in collaboration with communities that we are serving from position of humility from an open heart and from a desire truly to be able to have long-ranging impact and not seek, you know, your personal gratification or celebrity, or the things that come out of being a public figure or someone who’s moving work forward.
Our model in a lot of ways is very similar to the work that happened over Freedom Summer. We are recruiting college students, we’ve incorporated high school students, those students engage with literacy-building curriculum that’s research-backed, but also is infused with what we understand to be important regarding cultural relevancy and building pride and awareness of social and current justice issues with our rising kindergartners, 1st graders and 2nd graders, because we have understood through our research that that period is a very critical time for building literacy skills. So we’re concentrating our energy on that population, because we want to make sure that we are building the greatest possible foundation for that during these formative years. And we’re also building a cohort of potential future teachers who have expertise in that area and are going to be able to intervene wherever they end up.
So that model is incorporating the intergenerational component through the coaches that we have. These are teachers who have experience who are dedicating their summer to mentoring these high school students and college students. And we also have these coaches facilitating professional developments that again, really uplift this idea of what sort of education is necessary, what sort of skills are necessary to provide quality education to Black students as a Black teacher, so they’re getting feedback, they’re getting coached, they’re getting those intentional PDs. And our students at the end of it have the opportunity to — I’m speaking about the kindergarten, first grade, second graders — have the opportunity to show at the end of the program the projects that they’ve created in addition to the literacy work that they’ve done that is centered around again, engaging around social justice issues and is grounded in a project-based learning model that elevates particular education-related objectives and issues that they have identified in their communities. So all of that, because the Freedom School model again was focused on giving access to literacy skills in populations where that wasn’t happening, with Black communities being disenfranchised but also was a part of larger social movements in Mississippi at the time that were designed to shift the social climate for people so that there would be less oppression, so that there would be justice, so that people would have the right to vote, so that they would have access to the full rights and privileges of a citizen in this country. So we are very much carrying on that tradition and engaging in our work in the communities that we serve with that same mindset.
[00:27:10] Amy H-L: Obviously you already have very robust programming. What do you envision for the Center over the next several years?
[00:27:17] Mimi M: We will be expanding Teaching Academy, the amazing work that Hines and her team have been doing, and we want to make sure that we are working in districts and across, states that have actually implemented some sort of CTE model, or there’s a policy in place that’s conducive to this type of programming. So that is something that we’ve been doing in Pennsylvania since 2019, Hines? Yes, we’ve been implementing that programming then we have a lot of data that’s promising and that shows the positive impact that it’s having. And it really is an opportunity for us to work with schools and districts around, you know, grow your own initiatives.
And we want ideally for these students to come back and teach within the community that they grew up in. And so that’s something that we’re envisioning as a part of our call to action for the next few years. And we have been crafting a new vision for impact. And that is a lot of what it entails along with also expanding our Black teacher pipeline fellowship. Right now we have about thirty fellows and we are recruiting for our next cohort. So that selection process is underway and we’re hoping to be able to bring on at least a hundred per year in the years to come. So I know that is a huge undertaking, but we understand that this can only be done in partnerships with groups like you all to get the word out on our behalf and other organizations that are doing, you know, some of the programming work or that can support us in other capacities. So that’s what we’re, we’re looking forward to, but Hines, if you want to speak more to Teaching Academy expansion, feel free.
[00:28:50] Ansharaye H: I don’t have a lot to add. You did a beautiful job, very thorough. I would also say it is our hope, again, as we’re thinking about building that community, that we can bring our Teaching Academy participants together and engaging in work that they find important, whether that’s like the education-related campaigns or supporting pushes for things that they want to see happen in the educational environment. I would love to see that happen. I would love to give them opportunities to build communities among themselves through convenings or opportunities to strengthen their personal and educational networks with each other because we want again to be able to build these and institutionalize some of this work that we are carrying on. So that regardless of what happens to us, or to the Institution in the future, the people have each other and they have vehicles through which they can carry on the work that we are doing here,
[00:29:44] Amy H-L: Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you’d like to speak about?
[00:29:48] Mimi M: I think one of the things that I wanted to highlight as well as far as what we hope to continue to do across the next few years is really build on the momentum of our We Need Black Teachers campaign. That’s the shirt I’m representing today as well. This is a campaign that was actually spearheaded by some of our high school teaching apprentices in 2021. And since then, we’ve been able to band together stories of people’s experiences with Black educators or being a Black educator themselves, or the lack of Black teachers throughout their entire schooling experience. And so we’ve been able to really think about how we can shift the narrative in education, specifically Black education, to be able to reflect on the positive and joyful moments and the impact that Black teachers have on their students and their communities at large. And we want to make sure that people can continue to share their stories as they reflect on their educational journey. And, and hopefully we’ll get more influencers that are interested in talking about this with us and collaborating with us in some way.
And we’ve had Shelly Ralph, who is our beloved Miss Howard on Abbott Elementary, represent our campaign more recently. And so we’re just really thinking about how influencers that are talking about education more broadly can tap into this work and help us shift the narrative at large.
[00:31:09] Jon M: Thank you, Ansharaye Hines and Mimi McKee of the Center for Black Educator Development.
[00:31:15] Mimi M: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.
[00:31:19] Jon M.: And thank you, listeners. Check out our new video series, “What Would YOU Do?,” a collaboration with Meira Levinson of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and EdEthics. Go to our website, ethicalschools.org, and click video. The goal of the series is not to provide right answers, but to illustrate a variety of ethical viewpoints. If you found this podcast worthwhile, please share it with a friend or colleague, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and give us a rating or review. This helps others to find the show.
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