BAEO advances its mission through four broad categories of activity.
BAEO has been and will continue to be primarily an advocacy organization. Central to its mission, BAEO advocates on behalf of low-income and working-class Black families for high-quality educational options and the choice to access those options. BAEO not only advocates for the creation of quality educational options that have an immediate impact on low-income and working-class Black families, but also seeks to expand opportunities for communities and individuals to empower themselves. BAEO thus helps to equip Black parents with the skills to better advocate for themselves and their children and to demand reform initiatives that will benefit them.
Educating and Informing
BAEO believes that education and information are powerful tools that are often overlooked in education reform – in particular in communities of color. In all our efforts, BAEO seeks to educate and inform various segments of the Black community primarily about the importance of quality educational experiences, how we define quality, the reality of the Black experience in communities today, and the means by which families can pursue better options for their children.
Learn about BAEO's Parents, Power and Purpose program; and visit our local websites, to find out what's happening near you.
Among BEAO’s most important functions is convening people for discussion, debate, planning, and action around parental choice and other education reform initiatives, including Black parents, students, elected officials and other leaders, clergy, educators, and community activists. BAEO has proven its value in uniting individuals, providing education and information, and helping to shape a common agenda to advance promising initiatives.
Read about BAEO’s Annual Symposium, the nation’s largest gathering of parental choice supporters and education reformers.
Leading and Cultivating Leaders
BAEO engages on the national level as a credible Black voice on a broad range of education reform issues, with particular interest in conversations about parental choice and quality in education. Our broad range of education reform experience positions BAEO as an effective thought leader and partner in advancing the movement. Through our own initiatives and our increasing collaborative work with other influential organizations, we are actively shaping the nation’s education reform agenda.
It is vital that we identify, cultivate, and prepare a new generation of Black leaders who will be prepared to carry into the future the critical mission of ensuring that all children have access to a quality education. BAEO supports aspiring Black educational entrepreneurs who are building great schools; creating cutting-edge school support programming; or disruptive technologies that make teaching and learning more efficient, more dynamic, and more effective and that will have an immediate and transformative impact on schools and children.
BAEO works with individuals and organizations across the country, but we are intensely focused on the educational challenges and opportunities facing certain cities and states. Through our local chapters, advocacy sites, and mobilization sites, we deploy supporters to participate in advocacy and mobilization efforts by providing public testimony, attending rallies, and educating others through public information campaigns. Generally, our city- and state-based advocacy and mobilization efforts focus on enabling low-income and working-class Black students to attend high-quality schools through charter schools, private scholarships, and tax-supported scholarships.