Creating a Pipeline for Young Black Males to Enter the Teaching Field and a Target Focus on Improving Math Proficiency in Detroit-area Public Schools

(Detroit, February 1, 2023) – Black Male Educators Alliance (BMEA) is excited to partner with DPSCD to offer the Black Minds Math Leadership Program, an intergenerational mentoring initiative designed to solve the long-sought-after challenge to increase the percentage of Black males in the classroom and to support the work of increasing Math proficiency across The City.

Given the socio-economic divide that exists for Black and brown children who disproportionately face roadblocks to attaining economic stability, along with the decline in math proficiency across Detroit school communities, BMEA launched its Black Minds Math Leadership program. This intergenerational mentoring initiative is modeled after an exemplar previously designed and successfully implemented by BMEA Founder and CEO, Dr. Curtis Lewis at a traditional public school district during his early years as a graduate student at Michigan State University. ​​Recognizing that Math and its concepts are the gatekeepers to more affluent occupations and that only 2% of the teaching profession nationwide includes black males, the Black Minds Math Leadership program seeks to disrupt this ongoing reality, and create a pipeline for young Black males to enter the teaching field with a target focus on improving math proficiency in Detroit-area public schools. BMEA’s Director of Mentoring Joe Bush, and Director of Teaching & Learning, Mike Payne will serve as program directors for the initiative as former mentors and math educators. Payne expresses that “the hoped-for outcome is to increase the capacity for productive struggle and to create mathematical mindsets for these emerging young leaders to utilize for the remainder of their academic and professional careers.”

We are grateful to our partners at Detroit Public Schools Community District, where we began facilitating this intergenerational mentoring initiative in January 2023. High school mentors from East English Village Preparatory Academy serve as mentors to the young leaders at J.E. Clark Academy. This offering is made possible in part through the generosity of the United Way awarded dollars to support BMEA’s Black Minds Math Leadership Program.

The Black Male Educators Alliance mission is to develop effective culturally responsive educators who cultivate learning partnerships and grow independent thinkers into change agents for their communities. We are dedicated to liberating whole school communities and transforming the education landscape across our country.

For Media Inquiries
Contact: Staci L. Williams
313.407.8270 | staci@blackmaleeducatorsalliance.org