Annysa Johnson

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A lowercase "e," it turns out, can be difficult to master. But Patrick Jagiello is endlessly patient.

"Slide right, then circle around," Jagiello tells 4-year-old Tarrell Harvey at the sign-in table in Mandy Sluss' preschool class at Milwaukee's Next Door Foundation. Tarrell follows his lead, but his "e" looks a little wobbly.

"Here, I'm going to help you," Jagiello tells him, gently placing his hand over the child's hand. And together they move the pencil, sliding right, then circling around.

"That's cool," Tarrell tells him, obviously pleased with their effort. "Now, I want to try."

That is exactly the reaction founders of the Washington, D.C.-based Literacy Lab hoped to elicit when they created the Leading Men Fellowship, a 2-year-old program aimed at boosting early childhood literacy skills while exposing young men of color to careers in education.

Urgent need for quality childhood programs

Jagiello, 19, is among nine Leading Men Fellows embedded in preschool programs around Milwaukee, part of a multifaceted effort to expand access to high-quality early childhood programs, particularly for low-income and minority children for whom, research suggests, that access can be life-changing.

It is an unprecedented collaboration, bringing together a cross section of leaders — from education, health care, philanthropic organizations, business and government — to name a few. And the stakes are high for a city with some of the widest black-white academic achievement gaps in the nation, where the high school graduation rate for black and low-income students hovers below 60 percent, and where black men in some neighborhoods are more likely to go prison than college.

"All of us understand that the best way to make an impact on a person's life is on the front end," said Milwaukee Ald. Cavalier Johnson, a father of three who co-chaired a citywide task force on early childhood education last year.

"We need to make smart investments in people when they're young, when their brains are developing ... so they can become productive, contributing members of society."

Research suggests that poor children who have high-quality early childhood experiences — not just baby-sitting, but interactions that nurture brain development — are more likely to graduate from high school and go on to college. They're more likely as adults to be employed and less likely to spend time in jail.

Obstacles to quality child care

But the hurdles to quality child care are many, particularly for low-income families. It's expensive; infant care averages about $15,000 a year in Milwaukee. And the Wisconsin Shares subsidy for low-income working parents covers only about 15 percent, leaving most unable to cover the co-pays for higher-quality care.

The high costs of training and chronically low pay for providers — the average salary is about $10 an hour — has created high turnover and staffing shortages. Some neighborhoods of the city are, effectively, "child care deserts" with few or no providers that meet even the minimum standards for state licensing.

The state subsidy had been at the federally recommended 75% in 2007. But lawmakers dramatically scaled back the program because of massive fraud uncovered in a yearlong investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

ARCHIVES:Rampant fraud uncovered in child care subsidy program

"Today, about 77% of eligible children in Milwaukee are in the lowest-rated two- and three-star programs," said Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. "It's pretty grim in Milwaukee. That's not what we want for our kids."

To counter that, child care providers, their supporters and partners have launched a number of new initiatives, some of which were recommended in the city task force's October report. Among them:

The city in October hired former child care provider Dea Wright to head its new office of Early Childhood Initiatives, which will serve as a clearinghouse for providers and families, starting in low-income neighborhoods designated as "Promise Zones." The office is housed in the Milwaukee County Public Library, which offers a number of programs aimed at boosting literacy in early childhood, a key component for ensuring children are kindergarten-ready.

United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County and Milwaukee Succeeds will launch a shared services network for 20 providers, similar to those in about two dozen cities around the country. The network, which will be funded through a grant from the Medical College of Wisconsin, will allow providers to share costs for bookkeeping, professional development and other services.

The Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, Milwaukee Area Technical College and the Milwaukee Public Library are partnering to coach and mentor early childhood teachers.

Milwaukee Succeeds has launched a Kindergarten Readiness Partnership focusing on four areas — quality early child care and education, immunizations, developmental screenings, and social and emotional development.

Last year, the Betty Brinn Museum unveiled Milwaukee's version of Vroom, an app created by the Bezos Foundation that offers "brain-building activities" for children. And this month, the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association will launch the Wisconsin Shared Education Resource hub, or WISER, a website featuring more than 1,600 resources for child care providers.

Next Door Milwaukee, which serves nearly 1,700 children at three locations and nine partner sites, has two programs aimed at addressing the preschool teacher shortage. Its Early Childhood Scholars program, now in its second year, partners with Milwaukee Area Technical College to recruit and train parents to become teachers. Its first 14 graduates are now employed as assistant teachers at one of its sites. Its second class is nearly double that size, and it has 22 candidates on a waiting list for a new class in January.

RELATED:Borsuk: Rise of quality early education programs are bright spot for Milwaukee

RELATED:Borsuk: Wisconsin Reading Corp tutors combat literacy crisis one child at a time

RELATED:Wisconsin's largest school districts join in effort to target black-white achievement gaps

Leading Men Fellows

Milwaukee's Leading Men Fellows initiative is one of six in cities across the country. As part of the program, the fellows earn $15 an hour serving as teachers aides, focusing specifically on boosting students' literacy skills at Next Door and two Milwaukee Public Schools sites.

It looks like fun and games, but this is serious science based on the "Big Five" early literacy predictors developed by the National Early Literature Panel. Conversations and questions that build vocabulary, for example, or rhyming and alliteration games that expand their understanding of how words sound.

Everything they do — from the morning meet-and-greet to the sign-in, one-on-one reading with students, even the songs they sing when they line up to go outside — is scripted to develop those foundational skills.

"They're just sort of surrounded and immersed in the language," said Rebecca Pride, the literacy coach who works closely with the fellows during weekly training sessions and classroom visits.

Crash course in brain development

The men underwent a week of intensive training in Washington, D.C., a crash course in brain development, how to analyze data, what it means to be a man of character and other topics.

"I learned so much," said Next Door fellow Isouma Shine, who fielded hugs and high-fives as students arrived on this morning, then helped them settle in for breakfast.

He is already seeing progress in his students, particularly in the daily sign-in.

"When we started, a lot of them didn't know their letters. And now they're getting to where they can write their whole first names," said Shine, who plans to enroll in the early childhood education program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee this summer.

But the training goes only so far. Many of the fellows said they were unprepared for the emotional connection they would forge with their students, who seem to crave their attention. They weren't used to such unabashed affection.

"They tell you the kid will get attached to you, that they're going to love you. But when you're actually in a classroom and a kid says they love you, you're, like, 'Whoa,' " De'Anthony Lee-Alexander told supporters at the fellows' official launch in December. "You don't know what to do. It's such a good feeling."

Most of the fellows had few if any black male teachers growing up, and they're mindful of the responsibility they carry in that role for their students, most of whom are children of color.

"That's one of the things that sticks out for me," said D'Ovieon Thomas, a fellow at Starms Early Child Childhood Center.

"It makes me very, very happy inside to know that I can leave that kind of imprint. If they don't have that at home, then I can be that."