From the Director’s Desk: The Miseducation of a Generation

by Cathryn McGill
NMBLC Founder & Director

Isaiah Taylor was 12 when I met him. Every single time he saw me, he would run up and say “Hi, Miss Cathy.” It always warmed my heart. I felt as though I had a relationship with young Isaiah.

A Painful Realization

One day when he saw me at camp, he ran up to me with his usual greeting, and I looked at him with a smile and a sternness designed to make him think about his behavior and responded, “Young man, why do I keep hearing your name from all of your teachers and not in a good way?” He looked at me—obviously disappointed because he felt connected to me, and I was showing discontent—unshed tears welling up in his eyes and said, “Miss, I can’t read.”

A Predictable Outcome

Isaiah had just completed the fifth grade at Emerson Elementary School in Albuquerque’s International District and was headed to middle school, where 12-year-old boys who can’t read have a predictable, almost certain future—the system or the grave. I held it together long enough to comfort him and to tell him not to worry; I would be there to help him feel included at camp.

Then I walked outside and burst into tears. How could we let this happen? I knew we would lose him. July 2022 was the summer he came to the Roots Summer Leadership Academy—one of many children from fragile homes, from neighborhoods where futures are often shorter than childhoods.

A Life Cut Short

On March 1, 2025, Isaiah was killed. A bullet to the back of his head. He was 14. His death didn’t make the news. No public outrage. No candlelight vigil. Just another Black boy gone. Cremated. Forgotten. Unless we don’t let him be.

A System of Neglect

W.E.B. Du Bois once said, “Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental.” Isaiah was denied that right. Not by accident—but by design.

This country has always known how to build a better reader. But it has also always chosen who deserves the effort. The child of poverty, of color, of chaos? He must first survive his neighborhood, his trauma, his school system, his home. Then, maybe, he’ll be seen.

Miseducation as Containment

Carter G. Woodson warned us a century ago: “When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions… He will find his ‘proper place’ and stay in it.” That’s the miseducation. That’s the system. A curriculum of containment.
What took Isaiah wasn’t just a bullet. The weapon was also literacy denied. Education neglected. Compassion rationed. That trigger was pulled long before the gun that killed him fired.

A Generation Lost

Each year, thousands of Isaiahs vanish—from classrooms, from society, from memory. They are trapped in a system that criminalizes failure while offering no tools to succeed. We see headlines about crime and violence but rarely trace the path that began with a child sitting in a classroom pretending to read.
This generation isn’t misbehaving. It’s miseducated.

A Call to Action

And as Du Bois reminded us in his refusal to accept the system’s limits, “Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”
We owe Isaiah more than grief. We owe him resolve. Here’s how we fight back:

Early Literacy Screening: Mandate it in all Title I schools. Catch the Isaiahs by first grade, not post-mortem.

Tutoring as Intervention, Not Enrichment: Fund evidence-based reading instruction as a core intervention strategy, not an afterthought.

Community Reading Mentors: Train and place adult volunteers from the community in schools to build literacy bonds and trust.

Fund Families, Not Just Programs: Isaiah’s family was precariously housed. Literacy can’t grow where survival takes all the oxygen. Invest in stability.

Make It Personal: Adopt a child, a classroom, a school. Refuse to let another life slip through unnoticed.

Honoring Isaiah

Isaiah was not invisible. He mattered. And he matters still.

But if we don’t remember his name—and act in it—we will bury another child like him next year. And the year after that. And we’ll call it tragedy, when it’s really neglect.

I’m sorry we failed you, Isaiah. I’ll do my best to make amends. Will you join me?