This article was written by Quintessa Willaims for Word In Black.
In March, when The New York Times reported that 1 in 5 young Black men between the ages of 20 and 24 are neither in school nor employed, longtime educator Dr. David E. Kirkland was not surprised.
The same article noted that Black men make up just 19% of Howard University’s enrollment, one of the nation’s most prestigious HBCUs.
However, in his view, the article focused on the wrong end of a young person’s educational journey.
Opting out of college and the workforce is a symptom of a much larger problem for young Black men, one that begins as early as preschool, long before college enters the educational picture. The lack of Black men in higher education stems from next to no institutional or emotional support for Black K-12 schoolboys, lingering systemic racism in public education and very few Black male teachers as role models.
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“Most Black boys go to school and learn to hate school,” says Kirkland, founder and CEO of the nonprofit forwardED, a former NYU professor, and one of the country’s leading scholars on educational equity. “They’re told from day one that they’re a problem — that they’re unintelligent. They’re made to feel like a threat before they’ve even been given a chance.”
In other words, Kirkland believes the phenomenon of missing Black college men is the endpoint of a long, predictable breakdown, triggered almost as soon as their education begins.
“We didn’t just lose them after high school,” he says. “We’ve been pushing them out since pre-K.”
The Early Pushout
The data doesn’t lie. According to the Department of Education, Black kids make up around 18% of preschool enrollment in the U.S., but nearly 48% of all preschool suspensions. Kirkland says that’s where the pattern and the pushout begin.
“We have evidence of disciplinary action and special education placements beginning as early as 2 years old,” Kirkland says. “We treat Black boys like they’re problems before they even know how to write their names.”
This hyper-surveillance, combined with implicit bias, adultification and racial anxiety from teachers, aides, and school administrators, creates a cycle of exclusion. Black male students are suspended and expelled at three to four times the rate of their white peers, often for subjective or vague offenses like “defiance” that don’t usually merit punishment in others.
Schools that punish Black boys early and often, Kirkland says, are not neutral spaces, but sites of harm. Many Black boys are improperly funneled into special education programs not to support their learning but to manage their presence. And the psychological and social impact of educational mismanagement — damaged self-esteem, increased self-doubt and frustration — can be deadly.
“Ten years ago, the suicide rate for Black boys aged 10 to 14 had jumped 144%,” Kirkland notes. “We’re talking about emotional and psychological death long before they ever drop out.”
By the time they reach high school, many Black boys have endured years of suspension, exclusion and invisibility. When college becomes an option, it’s often one they’ve been conditioned to believe isn’t meant for them.
“That’s why many of them are not in college,” Kirkland says. “They’ve already experienced school — and what they experienced didn’t honor their humanity.”
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Black Teachers Fill Gaps. We Need More
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 6% of public school K-12 teachers are Black. Kirkland says while their presence is limited, they are mighty in what they do.
“For me, it was Black women,” he adds. “They told me I mattered. They told me I belonged. They didn’t give up on me.”
Still, the representation gap is staggering. Only 1.7% of U.S. public school teachers are Black men, according to federal data. Kirkland agrees that a lack of cultural connection and mentorship contributes to the disengagement that drives so many young Black men out of school.
“When Black men do make it to college,” he says, “there’s pressure to go into high-paying fields. Teaching isn’t seen as sustainable. And for many of us, school was a place of trauma — and why would we want to return to that?”
Overall, Kirkland says it’s not just about getting more Black men into classrooms — it’s also about transforming those classrooms into places worth returning to. “We don’t just need more Black men in schools. “We need to reimagine schools that deserve Black boys in the first place.”
A System That Deserves Them
When asked how he’d redesign education for Black boys, Kirkland flips the question: “What deserves them?”
He calls for an education system rooted in radical love, trust, and imagination — a system that teaches Black boys how to be world-builders, not just rule-followers.
“We need a culturally sustaining curriculum, restorative discipline, healing-informed care, and assessments that highlight what they can do,” he says. “A system that doesn’t just measure their deficits, but also reminds our boys that they’re not problems. They’re miracles.”