The event at the Guthrie is open to the public
Teach For America Twin Cities is once again bringing a nationally known speaker to Minneapolis for its 2024 Teach for America DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) keynote.
Renowned leader and organizer Brittany Packnett Cunningham will take the stage at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis at 7 p.m. on the evening of April 25, headlining an event entitled, “Co-creating a More Just Minnesota.”
Teach for America recruits and trains a national corps of educators who teach for two years in underserved, low-income schools. Since arriving in Minnesota 15 years ago, Teach for America Twin Cities has built a network of 1,000 alumni; the majority still work in education as teachers, school staff, administrators and policy-makers.
In Minnesota TFA corps members commit to working to close Minnesota’s achievement gap among students of color. In her career as an activist, Cunningham frequently addresses such racial disparities.
“Brittany has been on the front lines of activism and direct service,” said Charlie Braman, managing director of Teach For America Twin Cities. “She is able to share lessons she’s learned that we can apply in Minnesota to make progress with our racial equity gaps.”
Cunningham has been an educator, author, award-winning podcaster, network news analyst, and leader for social change, from public education to criminal justice. She was a member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing and the Ferguson Commission and held a top role at Teach for America.
“She has the practical, lived experience, the anecdotes and the data to analyze how we got to where we are in Minnesota,” Braman said. “She can identify best practices that we can leverage locally to work to close those gaps.”
Prior to Cunningham’s talk, the audience at the Guthrie will watch a film commissioned by Teach For America Twin Cities. Local filmmaker Benji Perez Gonzalez created a documentary that asked local leaders to reflect on and reveal the stubborn racial divide in Minnesota across sectors, in housing, health, and wealth as well as in educational outcomes.
“Minnesota, we’re not the best,” Josh Crosson, executive director of Ed Allies, stated in the film. “We have the lowest high school graduation rates for kids of color in the nation. Our literacy rates are abysmal. Only about 50% are reading at grade level.
“We need that mind shift that we can do a lot better as a state—in fact most states are doing better than we are—and then we need to create solutions from that mindset.”
“We’re a healthy state,” added Markus Flynn, executive director of Black Men Teach. “We own our own homes, we have a strong education system, we have opportunities for people to advance socio-economically.
“But there’s an important caveat. None of that is true if you’re Black. We know that education is the quality of life indicator that has the most residual benefit that can lift up the other areas.”
Tickets for “Co-creating a More Just Minnesota” are $5, a price intentionally chosen to make the event accessible to all members of the community, according to Braman. VIP Tickets are available at a higher price ($25 and $50) for a post-lecture catered reception with Cunningham.
“Our VIP meet-and-greets always bring together leaders of Twin Cities groups with an equity focus. Great collaborations and coalitions have sprung from this in the past, when teams from these community-based organizations have a chance [to] connect and network,” Braman said.
Tickets for “Co-creating a More Just Minnesota” with Brittany Packnett Cunningham on April 25 can be found at the Guthrie Theater.