The mission to get Black boys to read
Educator focuses on solutions — like making sure children see role models who look like them enjoying books
ANASHVILLE, Tenn. lmost four years ago, Michael Pratt began making sure students saw him reading every day. He read in the hallway. Over his lunch hour. After school. He did it first as assistant principal at John Early Magnet School and then in the same role at East Nashville Magnet High School. Curious, students would approach him. “What are you reading?” they’d ask. “Must be a good book.” Pratt used their curiosity to explain how reading is the cornerstone of everything they did in school. If students dismissed books as boring, he asked what subjects they liked, explaining there was a book for everything they were interested in. Some students eventually asked Pratt for recommendations. “What I liked the most is how boys were curious about what I was reading,” he said. “It was like planting a seed.”
Getting high school students to read is no small feat, but Pratt knows the more critical juncture comes many years earlier. If children learn to read proficiently by the end of third grade, they have a better chance of succeeding in school and beyond. If they don’t, the trajectory heads in the other direction, with studies showing higher dropout rates and an increased likelihood of experiencing a host of social hardships.
For every student who does not complete high school, the cost to society is estimated at $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes and productivity, according to a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
In Tennessee, where Pratt works, in Wisconsin, where he grew up, and in school districts across the United States, African Americans lag far behind their peers at that early juncture, and again as they head into high school.
The gap is among the most researched topics in urban education, and Pratt is well-versed in the usual list of reasons: poverty and the trauma-filled lives many children face outside of school; lowperforming schools with inadequate educational tools; minimal parental involvement; a paucity of Black teachers,
especially male Black teachers; a lack of culture-affirming, early childhood education to develop a lifelong love of learning.
Frankly, he’s tired of talking about the reasons. He’d rather focus on solutions — or at least actions that seem headed in the right direction.
Black boys need to see more Black men reading, he said. Accomplish that and progress could flow into a host of areas. It’s just that simple, yet just that hard. And it’s more urgent than ever.
“We are in an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Pratt said.
Pratt’s personal watershed moment came three years prior to the coronavirus pandemic when he conducted unscientific surveys with groups of African American boys. He asked them if they liked reading. How often they read? And if they did not read, he wanted to know why.
He heard that they didn’t have enough time, that it wasn’t interesting, that the stories didn’t relate to their lives or experiences. And then a larger theme emerged.
They didn’t see Black men reading. Some had not seen a Black man reading for pleasure in months.
“I’m a strong believer in you can’t believe what you can’t see,” Pratt said. “If you are not around people who look like you who read, then it won’t be high priority.”
Numerous personal influences
Pratt grew up around readers. His mother, Dianne, was a longtime librarian in Milwaukee; his father, Marvin, was the second Black male librarian in the state and as Common Council president would go on to become acting mayor of Milwaukee.
Dianne and Marvin Pratt met while Marvin was working at the Center Street Library. He asked Dianne out for ice cream, and they got married 18 months later. The couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in May. Even at the age of 76, with diminishing vision, Marvin still leads a monthly African American men’s book club.
“I was fortunate because I grew up around readers,” Michael Pratt said. “But we have children today who don’t even have books in their home. Think about that.”
In Nashville, he came up with the idea of “Fatherhood Fridays,” an initiative that didn’t require money, a huge policy change or months of research. The only thing it required was a school willing to allow Black men to spend a few hours reading with students over breakfast. The hope was these monthly mentoring sessions might ignite an appreciation of reading in boys of color.
“When I first started this, I wasn’t sure of the kind of impact it would have. I just knew I wanted to do something to spark change in young people,” Pratt
More online
For videos and photo galleries and to read earlier stories in this series,
go to jsonline.com/milwaukeespromise.
Ja'Vohnni Calloway tells his mentor he hopes he comes back next month. “I wish this didn't have to end.”
said.
While continuing to work at the high school, Pratt reached out to several elementary schools in Nashville before Principal Myra Taylor, at Buena Vista Elementary School, told him Fatherhood Fridays would be a perfect complement to her school.
Buena Vista ranked in the bottom 5% of the state in achievement, with only 9% proficiency in reading. Most of the 288 students are Black; 97% are of color; 35% are homeless. The school sits in the 37208 ZIP code, which, according to a 2018 Brookings Institution report, has the highest incarceration rate in the country.
“A lot of our kids share traumatic experiences and we have to address those needs while at the same time trying to get them to learn, and it’s difficult,” Taylor said.
If students don’t think they have a tomorrow, they don’t care about learning today, she said.
“This is why Fatherhood Fridays is so important and a part of what we do,” she said. “They are seeing other Black men, who look like them, that are in shirts and ties, that are reporters, authors and engineers leaving here and going to work. They may not see that in any other place.”
Taylor, who is African American, also supported Fatherhood Fridays because out of the school’s 22 teachers, there are only four Black women and no Black men.
“Our kids need to see these Black men,” she said. “Our staff needs to see them, too.”
Once Buena Vista was lined up, Pratt challenged his fraternity brothers of Phi Beta Sigma to get on board, along with other Black fraternities and organizations throughout the Nashville area.
The first Fatherhood Fridays held in 2018 brought in about 30 men. The men had breakfast with the kids and for over an hour either read to students, had the students read to them or just read together in silence.
Since then, Taylor said, the change in the students is shocking.
“When Black men come into this building, our students are at attention because they see a mirror,” Taylor said.
Well-chronicled gaps in performance
Buena Vista is at one extreme in terms of academic challenges, but schools across Tennessee struggle as well. Only about 33% of Tennessee’s third- through eighth-grade students are considered proficient in English.
What’s more, the state’s education commissioner reported in September that test scores already were showing the impact of school closures during the pandemic and virtual learning. “We are probably going to look at somewhere between 12 and 14% literacy statewide,” Penny Schwinn said.
Wisconsin roughly mirrors Tennessee. Fewer than four of every 10 Wisconsin students were proficient in reading in the 2018-19 school year, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction.
There’s also a well-chronicled gap in performance between Black students and white students.
Out of the nation’s 28 largest city districts, Milwaukee had the third largest gap for fourth graders in 2019, behind only Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. For eighth graders, Milwaukee had the fifth largest gap behind Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Denver and Austin, Texas, according to The Nation’s Report Card.
Out of the 50 states, Wisconsin had the second widest achievement gap between fourth and eighth graders in the nation, trailing only Washington, D.C., the report shows.
Daryl Burns, 46, former principal at Vincent High School in Milwaukee, said the data underscores a larger challenge.
“We focus a lot on testing but reading scores alone don’t tell the entire story,” Burns said. “My youngest is 14 and I got him into reading by taking him to the library and letting him discover for himself what he wanted to read. He got into anime and now he reads all the time.”
Too many kids read just to take a test or to complete an assignment. But imagine if they were reading for the pleasure of reading? If they are reading