Ayele Shakur

Ayele Shakur, executive director of the Boston Learning Center, was recently honored by two local organizations. She received the 2007 Nan Bennett Kay Great Friend to Kids Award from the Boston Children’s Museum, as well as the First Annual Jack and Jill Children’s Unsung Hero Award, presented by the Boston chapter of Jack and Jill of America.

Shakur has worked as an innovator in urban education for more than a decade. After teaching for 11 years in the Los Angeles area and in Boston, in 1995 Shakur purchased a small company known as the Boston Tutoring Center, renamed it the Boston Learning Center and restructured it into what has become a thriving nonprofit organization that offers tutoring and test preparation courses to students of all ages.

Together with her husband, entrepreneur Gary Bracey, Shakur founded The Building Inspiration to Fight Failure (BIFF) Paradigm Project in 1999 to address the issues of low academic motivation, chronic failure and high dropout rates, all of which are significant concerns in urban schools across America. BIFF targets bright but unmotivated teenagers and has helped many youth go from failing to the honor roll. In addition to writing a book slated for a fall release entitled “Stop Flunking! A Guide for Parents — How to Motivate Your Child to Get A’s in School,” Shakur and Bracey hold motivation and study skills seminars all around Massachusetts during both the school year and the summer.

A native of Boston, Shakur holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Boston University and a master’s degree in human development and psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.