Dr. Kendall Ware, Ed.D. is a Saint Louis native who believes in empowering students to pursue their passions and equipping educators with resources that ensure student success. Dr. Ware joined the Innovation Technology Education Fund’s Board of Directors in May 2024.
Dr. Ware comes from a family of educators who helped shape his career, with his mother having taught at the middle school and collegiate levels, his father teaching at the high school and collegiate levels, and his older brother serving as the Vice President of a community college.
Dr. Ware began teaching during his first year of undergraduate education as a mathematics peer tutor for other student-athletes. Since then, Dr. Ware has served in various leadership roles, including interning and holding his first full-time position at Upward Bound, being an adjunct mathematics professor at St. Louis Community College, and establishing the African American Male Mathematics Fraternity in 2016.
Today, Dr. Ware wears many hats. He is a father, husband, educator, community leader, and mathematics textbook author.
Dr. Ware joined his current role as Director of Education at Dream Builders 4 Equity last November, where he designs and implements programs. The organization has various programs, including a real-estate program where students work alongside minority contractors to fix vacant homes, a chess program that teaches elementary and middle school students how to play chess, and the House of Vision, a storefront where students can sell items and receive 100% of the profit. “Our program age ranges from 16 to 24,” Dr. Ware shares. “We’re trying to give students the tools and access they need to succeed. It’s not just about getting to college but also being themselves.”
Last September, Dr. Ware published his first mathematics textbook Solving for Freedom: An Algebra I Textbook that Illuminates Black History through Math Concepts.
The textbook is a result of Dr. Ware’s passion for helping students and educators. At Crossroads College Preparatory School, Dr. Ware raised student scores in standardized tests by 7 points. “I started doing interviews,” Dr. Ware says. “People wanted to see how I increased scores in the Black community using [students’] passions and love for things.” Alongside his dissertation, centered on how black male educators impact the understanding of mathematics for Black students, Dr. Ware created an Algebra I textbook that offers clear and relevant math lessons while advocating for diversity and equity in K-12 classrooms.
Now, Dr. Ware travels to speak on raising standardized test scores and to present his textbook. This year alone, he has participated in events hosted by the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Dr. Ware is working on more textbooks and hopes that his textbooks will be used across America.
Dr. Ware enters his position on the Innovative Technology Education Fund’s Board of Directors with enthusiasm. “If we can fund educators to be better educators for their students and if they can see how passionate we are… we can make ITEF the best board I have served on.”