Baltimore: 23 Schools Have Zero Students Who Can Do Math at Grade Level
“My immediate reaction is, take your kids out of these schools”
Democrats are constantly telling us how great public schools are and how much we must value school teachers. So what happens when a Democrat-controlled city has almost two dozen schools with zero students performing at grade level?
FOX 45 News in Baltimore reports:
23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, per state test results
Baltimore City is facing a devastating reality as the latest round of state test scores are released.
Project Baltimore analyzed the results and found a shocking number of Baltimore City schools where not a single student is doing math at grade level.
“We’re not living up to our potential,” said Jovani Patterson, a Baltimore resident who made headlines in January 2022, when he filed a lawsuit against Baltimore City Schools. The suit claims the district is failing to educate students and, in the process, misusing taxpayer funds.
“We, the taxpayer, are funding our own demise,” Patterson said at the time.
Patterson was born in Baltimore. He has seen the failures firsthand. But when Project Baltimore showed him the latest test results for the city, he was momentarily rendered speechless.
“My immediate reaction is, take your kids out of these schools,” said Patterson.
The Maryland State Department of Education recently released the 2022 state test results known as MCAP, Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program.
Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in the state. Just 7 percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93 percent could not do math at grade level.
But that’s not all; Project Baltimore combed through the scores at all 150 City Schools where the state math test was given.
Project Baltimore found, in 23 Baltimore City schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math. Not a single student.
Zero. That should be the answer the next time the teachers at these schools ask for a raise.
We have covered Baltimore’s education problems previously:
- Baltimore HS Student Who Passed Only Three Courses in Four Years Ranks in Top Half of His Class
- Baltimore Schools Will Not Hold Back ‘Tens of Thousands’ Of Students Who Failed This Year
- Baltimore: 41% of High School Students in City Schools Earn Below 1.0 GPA
People are understandably angry about this.
FOX News reports:
Enraged residents slam ‘fraud and corruption’ as Baltimore schools hit shocking new low
Days after Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., declared education a top priority for his tenure, Baltimore reported that zero students in 23 different public schools are proficient in math. Also, 93% of third through eighth graders tested below grade level in the same subject.
Baltimore residents responded by blasting school officials and lawmakers for “fraud and corruption” which they claim is to blame for the low numbers.
“I lay the blame in two places,” U.S. Army veteran and Baltimore resident Evie Harris said on “Fox & Friends First” Friday. “I would start with the board of schools commissioners or the Board of School Administrators. And I’m going to also add in some parents… We’ve been having these results for decades. I am not shocked because we’ve been having these results. I am angry, and I would lay the blame majorly at [CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools] Sonja Santelises and the Baltimore City School administrators who are absolutely dismissive and arrogant at the results we are seeing here in Baltimore.”
First vice chair of the Baltimore County Republican Central Committee Kyna “K.J.” McKenzie also weighed in on the report.
” I’m shocked. I am frustrated and angry about it. As a parent, I’m a parent. I live in Baltimore City and we’ve been dealing with this for decades,” she said. “And these results are very frustrating.”
“Frustrating because we’re not able to get to the root cause of what’s happening, because everyone the leadership here blames it on racism. We’ve had Democratic leadership for decades. The people here in power look like me and everything’s blamed on racism.”
Perhaps Baltimore schools should focus less on equity and get back to teaching the basics.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
We have been told repeatedly as of late by the great minds of our institutions that math is racist.
So why would you expect students in black high schools to learn something racist?
It’s SO racist that Jews and Asians excel at math.
Baltimore: – Zero teachers who can do math …
You are all missing the main point.
This happens because the parents have bought into the ghetto culture.
Education is “acting white” and has no value.
So the kids don’t care because their parents don’t care.
Democrats don’t want their voters to be smart. Why would they?
Exactly.
We’ll just have to go back to the older Democrat playbook.
FORBID the colored kids from learning to read or do math.
Then maybe more of them will want to.
Don’t forget the parent(s) of these kids. Garbage in, garbage out.
If the inept alleged teachers could have more money. That wouldn’t fix anything, but teachers would have more. See Dr Jill.
I’m sure it’s the teacher’s fault and not the poor societal conditions surrounding discipline and mixed messaging regarding the importance of STEM education and meeting achievement outcomes.
This is systemic rot from DEI policies and from enabling a welfare hood rat generation because to rebuke and correct these problems would be racist.
I am not disagreeing with you because it is darn near impossible to get rid of inept teachers in the City of Baltimore. (Or most cities.)
There is no more money to give out. A few years ago the School Board released a report that the schools needed $1,5 BILLION (that’s billion with a “B”) for repairs to the schools themselves.
When asked where the money for capital improvements had gone in the previous years, no one knew. Projects that were scheduled, signed off on and paid for had not been done and no one said a thing.
People within the system wonder why no one trusts the City Schools and the Administration, and why people continue to leave the City to go elsewhere in the state.
No one has solutions because no one want to be accountable or demand accountability of anyone within the City government.
Money in administration is shamelessly embezzled in so many districts, it’s disgusting. As long as unions and politicians get their cut, no one does anything about it.
Dr. Pepper has better advice.
Careful…! I happen to know a Dr. Pepper personally. One of the finest physicists in the field of laser research you would want to know!
The board and way too many teachers are just rent seekers. If not math, what are they learning?
1+1= White Supremacy
I can’t speak for Baltimore, but, hear me out. When I was still working, I did my lighting energy audits in a lot of small to medium size school districts. I saw teachers who didn’t do anything, but there were far more who had just, plain, given up.
You could tell by their actions and body language that teaching meant something to them, but the “feedstock” of students gave them nothing to work with.
Two districts come to mind. One is a county in Mississippi where a good deal of the feedstock is the children of people who took refuge from Memphis. Smart kids, brought up in good homes. But, there were plenty who were disruptive, threatening, loud, and of that particular race that sees education as “acting white”, or it’s “raysiss”.
Another district, this one in a Western Tennessee city (east of Memphis), same thing. Plenty of students who wanted to learn, and great teachers teaching them. Schools in “that section of town” simply gave up, tuned in Montell, or ran a movie on the classroom TV and gave up. The students were as out of control as the monkey house of any zoo.
When you “have to” serve everybody, you can’t dump the troublemakers.
There was a time we had reform schools, then expulsion.
Government high schools in my area of the racist South are one third black. The majority are highly sexually active before their sophomore seasons. The real culture wars are fought in Petri dishes in the public health department’s medical lab testing new editions of penicillin against newer strains of venereal diseases. Diversity.
I wonder how many of the teachers can do math at grade level. Accountability is the only answer and thy name is School Choice. If you provide a good public education you will lose few students. As it is, as was posted elsewhere, this looks like a money laundering operation, with public $$$ ending up in Democrats’ pockets and campaigns.
“I wonder how many of the teachers can do math at grade level.”
Elephant! Elephant! Make way! There’s an elephant in the room.
“I wonder how many of the teachers can do math at grade level…”
BINGO.
Baltimore is famous for producing folks who cannot perform at grade level. There’s a person who moved there from Scranton and, after living in Baltimore for many years, attempted to take over the duties of the president but cannot perform at grade level.
IDK, for some the Baltimore school system is a success. Schools CEO Sonja Santelises (a PhD something called “Education administration who pompously likes to be titled Dr.) is getting $445,000/year. I am certain there are plenty more like her who think Baltimore schools are a crashing success.
Reminds me of the teacher union president who once stated that he’d start to care about the children when the children could vote in a union election.
Wasn’t that Albert Shanker? At any rate, whoever it was, was absolutely right. The Union was – and remains – for teachers, and sometimes administrators. Neither the children or their parents pay dues; why should he care about them?
The failure comes from parents not forming up organizations of their own and really, REALLY grabbing local and state education departments by the throat and TELLING THEM how things will be.
They did. They were called School Boards. Then they let the enemy staff them.
More like staph them.
Follow Santelises’ money: we’d find her net pay is a lot less – after kicking back to her enablers.
Perhaps her net pay is much greater. How many contractors to the Baltimore Schools might be “showing their gratitude” to her?
Michelle Obama magically begain a hospital “leadership post” at the University of Chicago Medical Center ” for over 300k per year while Barry was a new senator from Illinois. Her “job”: “Vice President for Community and External Affairs”
And this was over 15 years ago. Today, her payoff – er, pay – would be half a million. Because of her qualifications, of course.
Perfect example of why government unions should be outlawed.
No President has ever had the guts to rescind JFK’s executive order.
Marxist Equality has been reached to its fullest potential, excellent comrade
Reminds me of when Kelly Bundy graduates from high school, and hands her diploma to her mother:
KELLY [very excitedly] Read it to me, Mom. What does it say? What does it say?
Looks like the kids in Baltimore won’t even be able to work at McDonalds if they don’t know enough math to make change.
Or, worse, understand that non-compete Joe Biden says they have to sign.
They won’t anyway. For 20 years, their cash registers have been making change for them. Now kiosks do their entire job and McDonald’s doesn’t want them around.
Ah, but how are their CRT scores?
That’s why the left is killing standardized testing.
The students can recite all 87 genders. But they cannot count to 87.
The unteachable half keeps the teachable half from learning, is what the schools are doing wrong.
1) You can bet that the “solution” proposed will involve hiring more administrators.
2) There will also be calls to end state testing as racist.
3) Guess what the testing would show if they look at reading.
Subotai Bahadur
being able to speak understandable English is also “rayciss”
On January 25, 2023, five people were shot in front of a Popeye’s in a strip shopping center called Edmondson Village in Baltimore. Those shot were all students at Edmondson High, which is just across the street. One of the students died.
Politicians and activists immediately gathered to place the blame.
Did they blame the kids for not being in school? Nope.
Did they blame the parents for not having their kids in school? Nope.
Did they blame the school for letting the kids out of the school and not being in class? Nope.
Did they blame the Baltimore City Police School Resource Officers that are stationed at the exits and should prevent students from leaving? Nope.
They blamed Popeye’s.
You read that right. For the shooting where kids were not in school, they blamed the restaurant. Baltimore has an ordinance that makes it illegal for restaurants to sell food to people under 18 during school hours.
So because the kids left school without authorization, no one noticed they were gone, left the campus without approval, and were shot, that is the fault of Popeyes.
We told friends that if we were Popeyes, we’d hold a promotion that offered free chicken for students with A’s on their report cards.
We figure it would cost Popeyes two….maybe three…..chickens in total.
You may be overstating the costs to Popeyes of such a program.
More appropriately though, if you are a business near such a school where such acts of violence are, even if not common are not unusual; should you still be in business there? The risks, the willingness of the government to shift liability to the businesses [which has to affect insurance costs] it makes sense to move out of the area. “Food deserts”, “business deserts”, whatever. It is time to beat feet out of there too, along with the parents of children who care about those children.
Subotai Bahadur
The owner of the Popeye’s franchise in the Edmonson Village is from the area – born and raised in that neighborhood and attended Edmondson High. Leaving doesn’t make thing better. Surrendering doesn’t make things better.
There are lots of factors in this case. (In no particular order,) first is the ineptness of the school and the Baltimore City Schools administration. Second are the parents. No matter how much we are in shock about the abysmal performance of the students, parents play a major role in the education and behavior of students. It is an obligation they are avoiding.
Third is the Baltimore City Police Department and the Federal government. After several high profile cases, the Feds stepped in and now have oversight on the City Police. That is not to say that the Police Department did not need reform, but the Feds are not the ones to do it. Arrests are down, the number of police are down and crimes are up. The “oversight” is so bad that police are not allowed to stop people for traffic infractions. Statistically, over 50% of arrests for people with warrants and arrests for other crimes happen because of a traffic stop. That doesn’t happen in Baltimore.
Former State Attorney Marilyn Mosby (who is under indictment for various federal crimes) would not prosecute “minor” crimes. (Her husband is the head of the City Council.)
Those policies all combined to have people who commit crimes against people and property not be charged, much less arrested.
The people of the Edmondson neighborhood all want a return to 30 years ago when their community was a great place to live and work.
It will never happen with the people in charge caring more about other things than insuring the basic needs of the people who live in that area, pay taxes, etc,, are met.
Students deserve free lunch anyway cause they were prob out looking for Sister Cathy.
If you live in an area with performance like this you need to consider getting out. Not of the schools but the county. When public servants with 100% failure rate are not immediately fired and replaced the place is lost.
Now do Joe, Hillary, Pete, and Janet… and tell me where to move that’s better.
To a red rural area in a red rural State. Preferably with a debt free home with a few acres, a good well, a garden, an orchard and a stocked pond. A place with neighbors who are willing to help but also leave you alone until you ask. A place where you can be as independent of the heavy hand of govt as possible while still being among folks who will act cooperatively when necessary.
23 schools at what, say 300 students per campus?–so nearly seven-thousand children and ZERO as in NOT ONE can function at grade-level in math?–lord
was a film made years ago–was it “stand by me” with morgan freeman?–that showed what has to be done–take all the troublemakers, all of them, and expel them en masse–they’re gone–then poll the teachers after making sure they’re qualified themselves to do their jobs, and start over–ditch the die crap–get back to the 3 rs, with world history, civics, etc–start over–if your kids are pre-teens or already teenagers is probably too late anyway so leaving may be your only option but for those who remain going back to square-one is the only practical option–time for the parents (of the authentic students) to demand that administrations/teachers/staff perform the tasks which they’ve been assigned and do so successfully–and for the school admins/teachers to demand of the parents and students that troublemakers/disruptors will be summarily expelled and are no longer the burden of the school system
The movie you are thinking about is “Lean On Me” where Freeman played principal Joe Clark.
In 1971, Baltimore opened “Lake Clifton High School.” The school was state of the art for its time, with all sorts of media within the classrooms as well as computers (which was a novelty at the time.)
Immediately after being opened, Lake Clifton was plagued with violence, vandalism and theft. The media devices were stolen or destroyed. The computers were ripped apart.
The School Board went out and hired Joe Clark.
Clark came in like a whirlwind doing the same things he had done in New Jersey. He made a priority of learning and getting rid of miscreants.
The parents went berserk and the School Board backed them. Within a year, Clark, who was hired to do the very thing people were objecting to, was gone.
After many shootings at the school, and declining enrollment in the city, Lake Clifton High School was closed for good.
The City is looking to sell the property in the hope that a developer would purchase it for housing and shopping.
There have been no takers.
The school sits abandoned, damaged and a blight.
Cabrini Green Eggs And Ham.
Absolutely. You might be surprised how difficult it is to expel a student, but it is a very important part of the answer.
The classes with 1-2 disruptive kids that can’t be dealt with result in a difference of 1-2 grade levels by the time that group hits high school.
I suspect that if it were actually only 1-2 kids per classroom, they’d be ecstatic. College classrooms are almost certainly beyond that now.
I was being generous. If you get beyond 1-2 disruptive kids, then nothing at all happens educationally.
I know how I know. How do you know that?
thetaqjr: I have taught in Title 1 schools for 9 years now. I am in a very small, very rural school now where kids have the same classmates for 12 years. The difference between years is surprising and unlikely attributable to random chance.
Who wants to bet that the Baltimore teachers are the best paid in the state? Probably pulling down over $100K/year on average.
I’ll take that bet.
According to page 8 of the document prepared by the state entitled “”Professional Salary Schedules – Maryland Public Schools 2021 – 2022,” ( https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20212022Staff/2022ProfessionalSalarySchedules.pdf ) the is last in pay for the state and the 23 counties for teachers who have gotten a Master’s Degree (which is required to be obtained within five years of employment.)
The City pays a maximum for that level of $58,989. Montgomery (the richest county in the nation) sits atop the pay scale for the state at $106,010.
Howard and Calvert counties are the only other counties topping the $100,000 mark at $102,293 and $100,253 respectively.
Teacher salary schedules are public.
The Southern racist Democrats in the 1940’s and 50’s argued against integration, one of their arguments being that the black children simply weren’t capable of doing the same schoolwork (e.g. math) as white kids.
Looks like the NEA and assorted newly-branded racist Democrats agree. Wholeheartedly. I don’t, but nobody asks me
Pretty sure there were more than a few areas in the North where folks got twisted about integration. Granted some of that was opposition to bussing. It wasn’t like the historical generational prejudice and discrimination existed solely in the South.
Frankly the South is, IMO, far better off than other parts of the US for having been forced to confront racism head on and for all but a tiny few to get past it. Those of us in the South who were born after integration owe a debt to the previous generations who did the hard work. All we have to do is maintain the progress and momentum, not break new ground.
CC, tell me, please, how one confronts racism head on, when the definition of racism is malleable, and the tales told about racism in the South were told in sounds furious in a false fury.
Maybe the Benjamins could have made things equal. Certainly forced integration did not. It destroyed the system in the Mississippi Delta, where the major cities have died … Vicksburg, Greenwood, Greenville, economic points like Yazoo City, Clarksdale, others.
I don’t know how to have a private correspondence. I’d welcome a private conversation.
I watched a special about a top achieving high school student in Chicago. A camera crew followed him around for the day. Three of his classes were music. I think all of the classes except one never had a teacher show up.
So then, an aspiring retiring rapper.
find the pater familis would help
Unfortunately, just finding them doesn’t necessarily make them a positive influence.
Being biologically capable of siring offspring doesn’t of itself make one qualified to father them, especially when one is not being held responsible by societal norms or laws for doing so.
60 years of govt encouraging irresponsible single parent ‘families’ has left certain elements of our society with little institutional memory of proper parenting to fall back on.
Don’t bury the lead. ““Frustrating because we’re not able to get to the root cause of what’s happening, because everyone the leadership here blames it on racism. We’ve had Democratic leadership for decades. The people here in power look like me and everything’s blamed on racism.”
Toss in SEL, CASEL, DEI and equity audits.
Over at Instapundit, there was some discussion of the great Thomas Sowell.
One of Sowell’s observations was that, prior to 1954 Brown v Board of Ed, there were four high schools in Washington DC, all de jure racially segregated, three majority black, one majority white, and two of the majority black high schools had higher average academic achievement than the majority white high school.
Racism did not destroy black academic achievement.
Democrats did.
Things are looking grim for Mogadishu on the Chesapeake.
“My immediate reaction is, take your kids out of these schools,”
That’s the answer for so many things today.
Zero. That should be the answer the next time the teachers at these schools ask for a raise.
No. You’re ceding ground to them. Fire every administrator. Then, if that doesn’t turn things around, fire the math teachers – all of them. Then, if that doesn’t work, fire ALL the teachers and EVERY administrator in the district. And keep doing so until the schools improve.
People are understandably angry about this.
Most of them aren’t nearly angry enough. If you’re not firing people left and right, then you’re nowhere near angry enough. If you’re not on the verge of forming a mob to go down to the school offices and drag a few people out, then you’re not angry enough.
“fraud and corruption” which they claim is to blame
Nope. Not fraud – well, maybe educational fraud. What you’re getting is the end result of Progressive education. It values tribalism and idiotic ideas about self-actualization rather than the ability to perform something that is foundational to modern civilization. They’re doing exactly what they were trained to do.
As a parent, I’m a parent.
Well, they’re teaching all your kids to talk like Kamala, so you should be happy. SMH
The educational fraud is probably incidental to the actual fraud going on. How much do you want to bed that pretty much all the city leaders are actually members of an organized crime syndicate?
To be fair, my parents and family were teachers and admins in this environment. I also attended school there and had many experiences. Ironically, I never once felt that the teachers were anything but excellent. (with a few exceptions, as in all professions). My father, after leaving the military, began teaching in the inner city, and was constantly frustrated. In his 10 years in the classroom, he lamented that only a handful of children would be present to “learn”. Most ignored him, were violent, truant or misbehaved. Parental involvement was ‘zero’. Kids took all their lessons from the streets, and from the ‘teachers’ on the street corners and in the parks. I saw this firsthand as a child. My friends who had good homes, mostly went on to become successful. Sadly, that was maybe 10%. The rest started leaving (mentally, yet still sitting attending) the school by 10 years of age. In and out of JUVI, always in detention, no amount of “big brothers”, mentorship, or cajoling could turn it around for them. My dad put in after-school programs to no avail. I remember teachers coming to our house in tears, over their students. And regarding “funding”, when my dad became Superintendent, he’d say, “John, we don’t even know what to do with all this money!” We had millions is surplus, and no where to put it. We built the 3rd most expensive HS in the country..marble floors, stadium, and everything money could buy. Hired hundreds of special-ed teachers and PsychDs. Result: nothing. The fact is, if the children come from chaos, and are influenced by The Street….the 6 hours they sit in school will only save a few. Without parents…the game is lost. Anyway, that is just my experience. Post Script:My dad left the BofEd, and went back to be a principal of a grammar school. He gave it “one more try” to save the little ones. And he again failed.
Yes. I left an environment that was not totally dissimilar. I wasn’t able to keep trying to do a good job?
Maybe they can count to zero.
That is a feature, not a failure, of today’s public “education” system. It is designed to produce ovine subjects who are easily indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe propaganda. These “graduates” are designated as the shock troops for the new left-wing revolution to overthrow the chains of liberty and rights.