Black male teachers can have a profound impact in the classroom. Unfortunately, they’re a rarity.

By James E. Causey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It’s a brisk Monday in January and the first-year teacher at Lloyd Barbee Montessori School knows what kind of day his first-through-third graders are going to have almost the moment they step into the room.

“He’s a role model. You should see how his students and other boys in the school try to emulate him when they see him in the hallway,” said Catherine Loss, principal at Lloyd Barbee, a K3-sixth grade school. “They follow in line right behind him and they do what he does. Jarvis has really good posture and you can actually see how the boys straighten themselves up to be just like him.”

Jarvis Ragland lines up his class for a bathroom break. At the start of the year, Ragland instituted a “brotherhood” standard. “I told them as brothers, we are not supposed to fight each other.”

ANGELA PETERSON/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

Having at least one Black teacher in elementary school cuts the high school dropout rates of very low-income Black boys 39% and raises college aspirations among poor students of both sexes by 19%, according to a 2017 study by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, American University and the University of California, Davis.

In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Public Schools is the state’s largest district, with roughly 75,000 students. More than 40,000, or 54%, are African American, according to 2018-19 school data. A little more than 20,000, or 27%, are Hispanic. Barely 8,000, or 11%, are white. 

Black male teachers build different kinds of relationships with their students because they have experienced things that white teachers just don’t experience, said LaNelle Ramey, executive director of MENTOR Greater Milwaukee. 

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