BMT works to boost
number of Black male teachers

While 12% of Minnesota’s elementary school students are Black, there are fewer than 50 Black male teachers at elementary schools statewide

By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | February 2025

Fewer than half of one percent of Minnesota’s elementary school teachers are Black men. The downtown nonprofit Black Men Teach (BMT) is on a mission to dramatically change that number by placing 400 additional Black male teachers in the state’s elementary schools by 2035. The organization is partnering with St. Paul Public Schools and several other organizations to achieve that goal.

BMT executive director Markus Flynn said that the organization hopes to improve outcomes for students of color. He explained that Black boys are more likely to succeed in school if they have Black teachers as role models.

It’s estimated that just 2% of teachers in the country are Black men. While 12% of Minnesota’s elementary school students are Black, there are fewer than 50 Black male teachers at elementary schools statewide. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, St. Paul Public Schools has approximately 32,000 students and 2,255 teachers. Nearly 7,700 students are Black, and the number of Black teachers is 264. Statewide graduation rates last year were 88.7% for White students, 85.4% for Asian, 72.1% for Black students, 69.2% for Latino and 61.3% for American Indian.

BMT recruits Black men to pursue teaching careers, prepares and places them in schools, and works to retain them in those positions. Over the past four years, BMT has received $500,000 from General Mills’ Box Tops for Education to provide scholarship and student debt relief opportunities for prospective teachers. BMT helps place new licensed teachers in its eight partner elementary schools, each of which has a student body that’s at least 40% Black. They are Maxfield in St. Paul, Nellie Stone Johnson in Minneapolis, Monroe, Crest View and Zanewood in Brooklyn Park, Eisenhower and Tanglen in Hopkins, and North Park in Columbia Heights. Since it was founded in 2018, BMT has placed 13 teachers, and another 20 are awaiting placement. More than 30 college students and 20 high school students are in the pipeline.

Located at the Osborn370 building, BMT originally aimed to place 100 but raised the bar last spring after forming the Thrive by 2035 coalition with St. Paul Public Schools, the University of Minnesota, Metro State University, and a handful of other entities. The coalition expects to adopt its action plan later this year. Once the plan is complete, the number of partner elementary schools is expected to jump to about 100. For more information, visit blackmenteach.org.

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