Ellen Winn, director of the Education Equality Project, says she keeps the annually-released Schott report on Black males on her desk because of its value as a resource tool for those concerned with closing the achievement gap.

“They are telling the honest story about what’s going on with African-American boys in our country, which is horrendous,” Winn said. “Too often that tragic story can get hidden.”

However, Janks Morton, a Washington, D.C.-based author, filmmaker whose work deals primarily with Black men and boys in the United States, criticized the report for its emphasis on Black educational deficits.

Morton is known for his public repudiation of the widespread belief that there are more Black men in prison than in college, a claim that gets repeated in the latest Schott report, which states “the rate at which Black males are being pushed out of school and into the pipeline to prison far exceeds the rate at which they are graduating and reaching high levels of academic achievement.”

“They really uplift and expose the less desirable portions of the negative statistics about Black boys,” said Morton, who has studied previous Schott reports on public education and Black males. “That garners a lot of attention and support.”

Morton said the low graduation rates among Black males can be complicated by other factors, such as Black single parents moving out of school districts and thus making it appear as if their child has dropped out. He also said many Black male students ultimately graduate from high school but not in the conventional manner or timeframe. Morton said by emphasizing the educational deficits of Black males, the Schott Foundation appeals to a certain ethos in American culture in which privileged individuals like to see themselves as heroic rescuers of the less fortunate.

Schott Foundation president John H. Jackson said the report is meant to illustrate how America’s school system is systematically disenfranchising Black males.