How do we raise Black children's reading, state by state?

On this page: A question at a town hall; Where Black children are reading well; Where we stand; and Who decides, and what we can do this week

Is this paid with your tax dollars? Yes. In the 2024 school year, public schools took in $994.9 billion: 45.2 percent from state money, 43.2 percent from local money, mostly property taxes, and 11.6 percent from federal money. For 2026, Congress approved about $18.4 billion for Title I, the federal money for schools serving low income families. SourceLine takes no side for or against the spending; the decisions belong to you and the people you elect.

A question at a town hall

The next paragraphs are my own account and view. Kazemde Ajamu, founder of SourceLine.

I held a town hall for someone running for the Georgia State Senate, and I was standing among Georgia state legislators when the conversation turned to banned books and what the state was allowing schools to remove or restrict. The lawmakers in that room did not have the votes to change those laws. In Georgia, Republicans hold 99 of the 180 seats in the House and 33 of the 56 in the Senate. In 2022 the legislature passed Senate Bill 226, which moved decisions on parents' objections to school library books from school committees that include librarians to the principal. It passed the House 97 to 61 and the Senate 29 to 21, in votes reported as along party lines, and Governor Brian Kemp signed it.

We should challenge censorship. But as I listened, another question came to me: "Why should the state possess the final word over what Black children are able to read?"

The answer was already in the room. Churches, recreation centers and community centers have rooms where after school reading can happen. Bookstores and people willing to buy books can put them in children's hands. Educators know how to help young people enter the material. And the legislators themselves, even where they could not change the law, could pull together the resources they know about and connect them. As I wrote, "The community did not lack every part of the answer, but those parts were sitting in different places."

That is the frame for this story. Where we have the power to change a decision, we push our elected officials to use it. Where we do not, we have options we can take upon ourselves, and we do not have to wait. "Literacy entered one person, but its consequence moved through a family."

Where Black children are reading well

Start with what is working. In New Jersey, 24.9 percent of Black fourth graders read at or above Proficient on the Nation's Report Card in 2024, the highest of any state. Massachusetts, Colorado and Georgia follow, each at 21 percent or more.

Mississippi nearly doubled its share of Black fourth graders reading at Proficient, from 10.7 percent in 2013 to 19.4 percent in 2019, and has held that gain since. Since 2019, Black fourth graders in Rhode Island gained 6.0 points, in Georgia 4.1 points and in Nevada 4.0 points. Since 2013, 43 states and the District of Columbia have set laws or policies on how reading is taught, each one a decision by people we elect.

Where we stand

Nationwide in 2024, 16.4 percent of Black fourth graders and 15.6 percent of Black eighth graders read at or above Proficient. Proficient is a high bar: solid command of challenging reading, not simply passing a grade.

Reading early matters for everything that follows. Children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are about four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than children who are. The work is greatest in Maine, California and Wisconsin, where fewer than 8 percent of Black fourth graders read at Proficient.

Who decides, and what we can do this week

Getting into a school is one thing. Who decides what happens inside it is another. Your local school board hires the superintendent, adopts the reading program, sets the budget and sets library rules. Your state legislature writes the funding formula and the reading and library laws, and your state board and superintendent carry them out. In Washington, the Secretary of Education, now Linda McMahon, runs the federal programs, and Congress sets the money for them; the House Committee on Education and Workforce is led by Tim Walberg and Bobby Scott, and the Senate committee on education by Bill Cassidy and Bernie Sanders.

Where those officials have the power, push them to use it. Where they do not, build alongside them: a reading room in a church fellowship hall, a shelf of books bought by a fraternity, sorority or block club, a retired teacher who reads with children twice a week at the recreation center, a bookstore that partners with a school. None of this lets the schools off the hook. It keeps their limits from becoming our children's limits.

Ask your child's school how your child reads compared with grade level, and what the school does when a child falls behind. Ask your school board three questions: which reading program do our schools use, how many Black third graders read on grade level, and what will next year's budget spend to raise that number? Find the date of the next school board budget meeting and go. Ask your state legislators what resources they can connect in your district, even where they cannot change the law. And ask your church or community center whether it will open one room, one afternoon a week, for children to read.

Next, SourceLine will look at what the leading states did, from the public record.

Reading figures are the share of Black students at or above Proficient on the Nation's Report Card, which reports states and the nation, not counties or cities. Ranks count only the states with a reported result.