Center for Black Educator Development
Sharif El-Mekki, Founder and CEO
Education

The Center for Black Educator Development’s mission is to achieve educational equity and racial justice by rebuilding the national Black Teacher Pipeline.
Year Founded: 2019
The Center for Black Educator Development’s core program is the Black Teacher Pipeline (BTP) Initiative, which develops and supports Black high school students interested in teaching over a twelve-year timespan from ninth grade through their fourth year of teaching. The organization also features a professional learning division that develops culturally responsive, affirming, and sustaining teaching practices. It also forms partnerships to advocate for systemic promotion of teacher diversity and cultural pedagogy at all levels of government.
In under five years, the Center for Black Educator Development has impacted approximately 11,000 individuals through direct initiatives in their Teaching Pathways, Professional Learning, and Policy & Advocacy pillars. More specifically, in their flagship program, Teaching Academy, (high-school CTE course), 357 students, with 93% identifying as Black/Brown, participated.
The Center for Black Educator Development’s Freedom Schools Literacy Academy (FSLA), a five-week summer program for college and high school students interested in becoming educators, has seen success in recent years. Since 2019, the FSLA program has reached 388 total teacher apprentices who are high school, college, and graduate-school students – a nearly 300% increase in 4 years.

Sharif El-Mekki
Founder and CEO
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