K-12 Advocacy: Meet the Team

Sekou Biddle leads UNCF’s advocacy efforts to ensure more African American students will be college-ready and better prepared to enroll in and complete college by driving sustainable education reforms that benefit students and empower parents and communities to demand improvement. He manages UNCF’s advocacy platform, which includes three major components: grasstops partnerships, grassroots engagement and messaging and research.

He has more than 20 years of experience in urban public education reform and is a former at-large member of the District of Columbia City Council. He represented Wards 3 and 4 on the District of Columbia State Board of Education. As executive director of the southern region of Jumpstart for Young Children, he partnered trained adults in year-long relationships with pre-school-aged children to prepare them for success in school.

Sekou previously was director of community outreach for KIPP DC, which operates 16 schools in the District of Columbia. Prior to this, he trained and supported first- and second-year teachers as a program director with Teach For America, the national teacher corps. He has hands-on experience in the classroom working as a teacher in New York City, Atlanta and Washington, DC. While in the Atlanta Public School System, he provided professional development for elementary school teachers through the Elementary Science Education Partnership, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Sekou has a bachelor’s degree in business from Morehouse College and a master of education degree in early childhood education from Georgia State University with a focus on urban education. He also completed advanced studies in education policy at Georgia State.

Senior Research Associate
Meredith.Anderson@uncf.org

Meredith Anderson, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Associate in the K-12 Advocacy Department and Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute at UNCF, where she leads and designs empirical research related to K-12 education reform for African American students. Dr. Anderson has over 10 years of extensive research experience, including survey design and management, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and program evaluation.

Anderson's publications have focused on race, educational inequities, African American community voice in education, and the influence of representation on grouping and tracking outcomes for African American male students. Meredith's most recent publications for UNCF are: A Seat at the Table: African American Youth's Perceptions of K-12 Education; Lift Every Voice and Lead: African American Leaders Perspectives of K-12 Education Reform; The Lift Every Voice and Lead Toolkit: A Community Leader's Advocacy Resource for K-12 Education; Building Better Narratives in Black Education; and The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2015: African American Students.

Prior to her work at UNCF, Anderson was program evaluator for Baltimore City Public Schools, where she contributed to the development and management of the teacher and principal evaluation system, conducted statistical analyses to inform decision-making and led the evaluation survey for principals. Anderson also contributed to the Maryland Longitudinal Data System development at the Maryland State Department of Education. Additionally, Dr. Anderson was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Affairs at American University. She has also taught in the Department of African American Studies at Georgetown University and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University where she teaches courses on race and public policy. She is also on the board for the Wayfinder Foundation and The Center for Postsecondary Readiness and Success.

Prior to her work in Washington D.C., Meredith was a Research Associate for the Project for Equity, Representation and Governance (PERG) at Texas A&M University. Meredith earned both her B.A. and doctorate in Political Science from Texas A&M University.

Askale Davis joined the K-12 Advocacy team in March 2020 as Community Engagement Manager. She is primarily responsible for implementing UNCF’s K-12 strategy by building and managing strong community relationships and impacting the local education environment in the Washington, DC Area and Indianapolis, IN. For the last 12 years, Askale has devoted her career to urban education and workforce readiness in the Washington, DC area. Prior to joining UNCF, Askale managed a program that focused on school-wide restorative justice and community restitution practices, as well as provided wrap-around student support services for at-risk youth. Askale’s passion for urban education and advocacy began when she started her career as a secondary school tutor for DC Public Charter Schools during her senior year of college.

Askale is a proud graduate of Howard University. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry.