The National Center for Educational Statistics reports only 7 percent of teachers in the U.S. are Black, a problem veteran educator, Sherif El-Mekki, is attempting to improve this with the Center for Black Educator Development (CBED). The initiative was started in 2019 by El-Mekki, who spent 26 years teaching and serving as a principal in Philadelphia before being awarded $300,000 by Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris to start the program. CBED purpose is to build a national pipeline for Black educators by recruiting Black high school and college students from all over the nation.

The program offers in-person and virtual mentorship and paid apprenticeships and provides real-life classroom experience for students while earning a degree. The program provides financial support for new teachers who has completed the program during their first four years of teaching.

“[Black students with Black teachers] also have access to more rigorous coursework whether it’s Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, honors class, better attendance, better grades, better test scores a higher sense of belongingness all of those things happen during that year and long-term, up to 29 percent more likely to go to college and for Black boys that struggle with poverty, up to 39 percent less likely to drop out of high school,” said El-Mekki.

El-Mekki says he has been approached by schools with the belief that CBED has a lot of Black teachers at the ready, but he says that’s not the case. “We do not have Black teachers in our back pocket but what we do is have a strategy and curriculum and a model to help you develop a Black teacher pipeline,” he said.

“Address potential hostile work environments,” El-Mekki said. “They’ve not addressed racial biases and hiring practices and retention practices and leadership lattices and support so there are so many different things and for a pipeline the best recruitment strategy is a strong retention plan.”

Mimi Woldeyohannes, Director of Strategic Partnerships, CBED said,  “This is just the beginning on changing the narrative for our young people to think and see education as something not only viable but totally obtainable too.”

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