Making Minnesota schools more reflective of their students

From kindergarten through his first year at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Marqkye Pitts never had an educator with the same ethnic background as him.

“I often wonder how my experience might have been different with such a presence in the classroom,” he says. “My current motivation is to be that presence for the next generation of students.”

Pitts is currently an elementary education student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and part of an initiative to get more Black male teachers in Minnesota classrooms, particularly in the elementary schools.

“If you talk to enough people in the community, you realize that one of the more pressing challenges is how disparate our education outcomes are,” says Markus Flynn, the executive director of Black Men Teach (BMT), a Minnesota-based nonprofit formed in 2018 and committed to increasing the number of Black male teachers in state schools. “Our Black students are performing low, despite the fact that Minnesota ranks relatively well across the nation academically.”

Of all the K-12 teachers in the state, only half a percent are Black men. BMT aims to turn that around.

BMT’s plan is to target elementary schools with at least a 40 percent Black student population and increase the number of Black male teachers in each to 20 percent. Put into real numbers, there are roughly 90 elementary schools that meet the criteria. Of these schools, there are less than 50 Black male teachers. For BMT to reach its goal, it needs to place approximately 450 teachers in these schools.

In order to accomplish this, BMT has formed a new partnership with CEHD that offers aid and support to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) graduates to increase the number of Black male educators interested in becoming licensed elementary school teachers in Minnesota. Beginning in the fall, CEHD will provide 100 percent tuition coverage and academic support in a year-long elementary education licensure program. BMT will provide a living stipend, mentorship, guidance, and a community of current and aspiring Black male teachers.

“In many ways, the beauty of this partnership is that we are each bringing our strengths together to focus on recruiting and retaining graduates from HBCUs who wish to become teachers in Minnesota,” says CEHD Innovation and Partnership Officer Ryan Warren. “These are all students who will have completed their undergraduate degrees elsewhere, and some may have never even been to Minnesota, so we are working together to help transition these students here and provide them with support to become licensed teachers in Minnesota who stay in Minnesota.”

Tevin Thompson, a member of the new student cohort, grew up in Jamaica. He’s a retired track-and-field athlete and is looking to become an elementary school teacher. In primary school in Jamaica, he had plenty of teachers who looked like him, but they were predominantly women.

“In terms of a role model, I didn’t have that as a seven- or eight-year-old,” he says. When he got to high school, however, he found many more male teachers and that had an impact. “It helped to show we’ve all come from similar backgrounds and if these guys can turn out to be something positive then you can do it too,” he says. 

As for Pitts, his aims are the same—to be one of hopefully several Black male teachers students see as they make their way through their educational careers.

“My immediate goal is to become an elementary educator,” he says. “Eventually, I aim to transition into a principal or a similar administrative role, and later, I would like to focus on training future educators. Regardless of the role, my ultimate goal is to create opportunities.”

This is adapted from a story written by the College of Education and Human Development.