city healing
Seeing Is Believing
aims to help solve that problem. A lifelong educator, El-Mekki nearly missed becoming a teacher. “I was on my way to law There are not enough Black educators in our schools. This organization school,” he says. “I made a comis working to change that by constance garcia-barrio mitment to be an activist, and I ears ago, my parents told Miss Teachers,” published by the National Buwanted to effect change through the legal Farber, a white 60ish teacher at reau of Economic Research in 2017, show system. Then the parent of a friend, Mother the elementary school in our Black that Black students who have Black teachers Cynthia Moultrie, told me about a program working-class neighborhood, that in elementary school fare better. recruiting Black teachers. Thanks to that when my brother and I graduated It’s also crucial for “white students to program, I saw that I could be an activist they would enroll us in a junior high prosee teachers of color in leadership roles … through teaching.” gram for gifted students. in their classrooms and communities” to In 2014, El-Mekki launched The Fel“There’s a Hebrew element at that counter distorted images in the media, aclowship: Black Male Educators for Social school,” Miss Farber said, “and your chilcording to former Secretary of Education Justice, an organization to help recruit and dren won’t make it.” John King Jr. retain Black male educators in Greater PhilMy folks ignored her. But schools in Philly and nationwide face adelphia. (According to the Stanford GSE, Fast-forward 15 years: My brother had a roadblock: too few Black teachers. Black men account for 2% of U.S. teachers.) graduated from Harvard Law School and “In Philadelphia more than half the stuThen El-Mekki took things a step furI’d earned a Ph.D. from the University of dents are Black while barely a quarter of the ther. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what Pennsylvania. teachers are,” El-Mekki says. The Center it would … take to build a national Black Today, many white teachers still envision small lives for their Black students. “It’s about the way you see other people’s children,” says native Philadelphian Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development, aka the Center. President Obama and Oprah Winfrey praised El-Mekki for the huge strides his students made during his tenure as principal of Mastery Charter School Shoemaker Campus from 2008 to 2019. The Shoemaker students’ success underscores what research has shown: Teachers of color expect—and get—more from students of color, according to a report cited in “The State of Racial Diversity in the Educator Workforce,” published by the U.S. Department of Education in 2016. “Many students of color see improved academic performance, increased graduation rates, lower likelihood of suspensions and higher rates of college matriculation when … taught by Black teachers,” says Michael Hines, assistant professor of education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE). “Additionally, many Black teachers come from the very communities they serve, giving them the deep roots and lasting comPhiladelphia mitments … critical to building successful native Sharif El-Mekki founded the Center schools.” for Black Educator A blizzard of other studies, including Development in 2019. “The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race
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14 GRID P H I L LY.CO M DEC EM B E R 2021
P HOTO G RAP HY BY CHRIS BAKER EVENS