Rafiq Kalam Id-Din
Founder & Managing Partner at Embed Charter School
Rafiq R. Kalam Id-Din II is Founder & Managing Partner of Ember Charter Schools for Mindful Education, Innovation and Transformation. A social entrepreneur, activist, teacher, lawyer and nonprofit leader with over 25-years experience, Rafiq grew up in severe poverty in inner city Philadelphia during the height of the crack epidemic and violence of the 1980s and early 1990s. A two-time graduate of the University of Virginia (Bachelors in English and African-American Studies, and a Master of Teaching—English Education), Rafiq received his JD from NYU School of Law as a Thurgood Marshall Scholar. Rafiq practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP before serving as Executive Director of the AnBryce Foundation in the Washington, DC area, a pioneering pipeline program focused on impactful education opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged youth. In 2008 Rafiq received the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs for his innovative “Teaching Firm”, an innovative model for fully teacher-led schools managed like law firms, the first of which launched in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in 2011. A co-founder and former Executive Board member of the NYC Coalition of Community Charter Schools, founder of the #BlackLedSchoolsMatter initiative and co-founder of the Black-Latinx-Asian Charters Collective, Rafiq also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Echoing Green and President of the NYU Law Alumni of Color Association (LACA).