Study Finds Shocking Lack of Proficiency in Math at Baltimore Public Schools
“When you have this much of a ringing failure in your school, it should cost somebody their jobs.”
We have documented serious issues at Baltimore public schools in reading and math.
A new study shows that little has changed. In fact, things are getting worse.
FOX 45 in Baltimore reports:
At Baltimore’s five best high schools, 11% of students tested proficient on state math exam
Project Baltimore has made more stunning findings after obtaining the unredacted state test scores for every school in Baltimore City.
The test scores have not yet been released to the public, but Project Baltimore has been analyzing them. The results are hard to believe, even at the highest-performing schools in the city.
Earlier this week, Project Baltimore reported on 13 Baltimore City High Schools, where not a single student who took the 2023 math exam in the spring scored proficient. Not one. The report sparked a strong reaction in the community.
“I can’t tell you how horrible that is,” said Bryan Nehman, reacting to the report Tuesday morning on WBAL radio’s C4 and Bryan Nehman Show.
“This is when people get fired,” said C4. “When you have this much of a ringing failure in your school, it should cost somebody their jobs.”
The Daily Mail reports on the other finding mentioned above:
Fury as ZERO children at 13 Baltimore state schools pass math exam – as parent groups call on leaders to step down
A slate of Baltimore schools have sparked outrage after zero students passed their state math exams – with almost 75 percent testing at the lowest possible score.
The poor performances came in the latest round of Maryland’s state testing, where 13 high schools in the city – a staggering 40 percent – failed to produce a single student with a ‘proficient’ score in math.
‘This is educational homicide,’ said Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of Baltimore-based nonprofit People Empowered by the Struggle, to Fox Baltimore.
The activist said there is ‘no excuse’ for the failure, which has come after years of warnings over the city’s poor education standards.
It also comes days after a scathing new study found that schooling across America fell to dire lows during the pandemic, concluding that one-third of fourth and eighth grade students can’t even read at a ‘basic’ level.
Here’s a video report:
These schools are failing the kids. It’s outrageous.
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Comments
What’s shocking is someone is actually shocked at terrible scores. Schools across America are failing and the worse ones are usually located in Democratic run cities and states.
Indeed. You could tell me that only 11% of Instructors could pass the proficiency exams, and my reaction would be “That many?”
I hate to say it, but you’re right. It’s hard to get people who are expert in their content field to be teachers.
And I’m going to bet that the 11% were Whites and Asians that wanted an education and had parents that went out of their way to make sure their children learned what was necessary to be successful. The rest? Not so much.
Now it makes sense why and how they vote and who they vote for.
And they [i.e., non-Ds] say the public schools have been a failure,
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dUDaPAFFuts/sddefault.jpg
Seems like these educators and administrators committed a fraud on the public. They were paid to deliver a product; competently educated HS students, prepared academically to enter college or the 21st Century workforce. They didn’t deliver when only 11% of students across the system could meet the minimum standard in math and where 40% of the HS had zero students able to meet the minimum standard.
They were paid to deliver Teacher’s Union donations and votes to the Democrat party in exchange for higher pay. They have done that very well. Teaching, especially in places where the parents at best don’t care and at worst are actively antagonistic toward education, is done by the few teachers that have not had the give a sh!t beaten out of them yet.
Did you forget your sarcasm marker? I ask b/c I am fairly certain that the taxpayers who fund the Baltimore govt schools in which 13 separate HS had zero students achieve minimum math proficiency were not a consenting party to the bargain you described.
Chief, if I recall, all taxpayers pay for schools through a “piggyback” tax of around 50% of what they pay in state taxes. So, when the taxes are calculated for the state, another 50% is added to that amount.
Once the money goes into the hopper, the taxpayers have no say in how it’s used. It appears that even the local school boards either don’t have a say, or are so heavily under the control of teacher’s unions that they have no say.
It’s been a while since I escaped Baltimore, I am sure some things changed.
Not making the case about how taxes for schools are collected. I am stating that the taxpayers are not getting what they paid for. Which in most States is a Constitutional responsibility. In Maryland the language is; ‘the Legislature shall establish a thorough and efficient system of free public schools’.
When 40% of the district can’t pass minimum math proficiency and 9 separate schools don’t have a single student who can do so that doesn’t seem to be meeting the constitutional obligations of either thorough or efficient’.
Those inner city schools are mostly populated by Affirmative administrators and teachers, and then there are students who have moron parents.
It is interesting that black students often do well on arithmetic, better than whites. But past that perform poorly.
I wish that we could correct the IQ deficit. But so far identifing genes driving higher intelligence has been elusive.
It’s not genetics. It’s environment. Many of their parents won’t back up the importance of education and learning in the classroom. They are happy for the free daycare but have no ability to parent.
It is genetics which mostly determines what someone is capable of, environment can cause people to not achieve their potential. but there is nothing you can do to make someone perform above their genetic limitations.
Not going to get into a nature vs nurture with you, but suffice it to say there is more than evidence that doesn’t allow for prejudice of one’s intelligence based solely on their skin color.
Wrong, there are extensive tables regarding IQ, they show that higher IQ occurs far less often on a per capita basis as the average IQ of a group drops. Data for this exists for people worldwide. Ask yourself why we have never seen a black Einstein. That might happen in another 2000 or so centuries.
I love seeing people succeed, as long as it is based on merit.
It’s got to be partly genetics. Some kids with high IQ’s could pass those tests with no school even homeschool, just by osmosis and some practice tests to tell them what they have to know. How can you get NOBODY passing? That’s just statistically amazing.
Maybe it was all the non-exam high schools and the cream and almost down to the water was skimmed off, but still I’d expect a few passes out of a pool of just below-average students even in that district. Someone gets lucky, someone happens to read because they want to learn about how cars or machine guns work, etc. Heck that’s why I did a lot of the reading I did that made me an outstanding reader — I wanted to know the information in those books for my own personal interests. Some girl does her homework because she’s a studious girl. Lots of reasons that even out of a pool of weak students you should get some upside results.
You calling anyone a moron is the biggest display of irony and lack of self-awareness in quite some time.
Do you need me to give you links to IQ data? I am assuming that you are not one of the morons.
If we are going to improve outcomes, we must understand the actual causes, make people aware, and somehow get them to care about their and their children’s outcomes. While the per capita rates are far worse for blacks, there are plenty of similar poor white people.
“ It is interesting that black students often do well on arithmetic, better than whites.”
Bring it.
Do you understand that arithmetic principles encompass a subset of mathematics and the stage of childhood development that they are taught? He said that past that they perform poorly. Then you would understand the subtleness of his message and who the moron is in this civil discussion.
Tom M I don’t get your point. I bet a lot of adults have forgotten long division if they could ever do it. If they were to relearn it now as adults, they would be learning arithmetic. It’s not a value judgment. There’s surely some elementary school material (although not in math or English) that I don’t currently know, and if I had an interest, I would not be ashamed to say I was filling in some stuff I had forgotten from elementary school.
Do you not understand what IQ measures? It doesn’t magically measure innate intelligence. It measures learned intelligence, which is why the answer will always involve a great deal of nurture to go with any minor component of nature.
Since you are professing yourself to be an expert, why don’t you explain just how genetics determine intelligence….and no bullshit nebulous statements. Tell me the genes that, when expressed or suppressed, determine how smart any person will be regardless of color. You said yourself that these genes are “elusive”, so if all you have as proof that it IS genetics are the IQ test data then you are sorely lacking in evidence.
I do understand what IQ measures, it is how much knowledge one acquires relative to other people of the same age. So on average, African blacks only acquire 0.64 as much as whites, American blacks only acquire 0.85, Asians acquire about 1.07, Ashkenazi Jews acquire about 1.12 to 1.15. Now do you understand?
It is a proxy of innate intelligence, and a very good indication of how well someone will perform.
If the black students were doing well in arithmetic, they would be proficient in all elementary school material. That goes up thru long division. High school graduation standards don’t require much more. Algebra 1 is not generally required, certainly not more than that.
Instead none of the students (of any color) was proficient in math at their grade level.
This article is about HS level basic mathematics and the inability of 100% of students at 13 separate HS to demonstrate minimum proficiency. That’s a much bigger issue unrelated to native intelligence.
I would add that the black student arithmetic ends about 3rd grade.
It took a study to figure this out?
But of course, I bet the students can do some quick math when it comes to selling drugs and collecting payment.
We just have to present “Maff” in a way that these students understand.
I note your quoting of the ghetto pronunciation of “math”.
I have a little bit of world travel under my belt. None to sub-Saharan Africa. But in those travels, and in what I have seen on some foreign TV shows, the US at least seems to be the only nation where blacks pronounce words in such a broken fashion. I also never seem to hear “he be…” or, sentences with missing words. “He’s my baby daddy” is spoken as “he baby daddy!”
Why is this? Plenty of the overseas blacks were descended from slaves or other unpleasant backgrounds. Plenty are poor. But, at least their English is somewhere within shooting distance of correct.
Well Chief.
I agree with your statement that Maff is a ghetto pronunciation. But that pronunciation is not limited to blacks, just like ghettos are not limited to blacks.
So, my use of Maff is based on my experience of being born and raised in Baltimore, specifically but not limited to Patterson Park and Pigtown, but also with family in Dundalk, Brooklyn Park, and Westport, Catonsville and a host of other places.
The lazy Baltimore accent, which I spent years trying to lose but still comes out when exhausted or angry, includes pronunciations like: “Bawlemoore” for Baltimore; as well as “B’Mo” and “Balmer”; “Saw it” for salt; “Downy Oshin’ Hun” referring to going to Ocean City; “Wersh” for wash, “pitcher” for picture; “Dower” for dollar and a bunch of other pronunciations too numerous to mention.
So, it is not black ghetto, it’s Baltimore speak that includes whites, blacks, and other nationalities. I even noticed while visiting Canton recently that the Somali’s have started to pick up the accent.
In how many countries other than the US do the black population insist on maintaining a detrimental subculture, instead of assimilating to the culture of the country they have adopted?
Shocking is not the word I would use.
Indeed, it is the wrong word.
Infuriating, shameful, or even criminal fit way better.
But this is no longer shocking, not for a D city, and especially not for Baltimore.
Why is anyone surprised that racist tests produced such a racist result?
No, really. Math tests are racist. They don’t measure “true merit”, whatever that means.
And this is where the real problem is. Because if you know your schools are doing a terrible job you can try to look for a way to fix them. But if you’re convinced that the problem isn’t in the schools but in the tests, and that no matter how good you are you will still get the same results, like Jewish students taking the university acceptance tests in the USSR in the ’70s, then it’s not something you can fix so you won’t try.
When the Bush Jr. admin brought out the “No Child Left Behind” program it came with a lot of tests to make sure the kids were learning what they were expected to learn. I heard so many teachers say “I don’t teach to the test.” As if that were a good thing. If your students are passing the test they you are absolutely teaching to the test. You may be teaching more than the requirements but you are teaching to the test. If your students can’t pass the test then you are failing them.
The test I teach to is kinda garbage. But, I teach to it anyways. The state ain’t payin me to teach what I want.
Huh?
I’m not surprised that you’re confused. You’re probably a product of these schools.
Comparing tests given to Jews in the Soviet Union with math tests??
LOL.
It doesn’t matter if someone is convinced that math tests are racists (which is hysterical) or unfair. People who can do math perform on these tests, regardless (and often despite) the pathetic instruction they are given. Lots of people do things on their own, and with the internet people with no money have more access to free educational material than the richest people of 30 years ago had. In these circumstances, there would still be some performing on these tests even though their schools suck … unless the problem is with the people and/or the culture.
I’m really not sure of what point you are trying to make – being sarcastic about the “racist math tests” (I assume, which is a good sign) – and then trying to give some pass to .,.. who knows whom over the “then it’s not something you can fix so you won’t try.” stuff.
The fact is that the teachers are getting worse, the curricula are eroding to nothing (nothing important), and the students are getting worse, themselves. These kids need strong disciplinarians (like Joe Clark) and decent teachers in order for them to have any chance, but they aren’t going to get either because neither are available for them. This has absolutely nothing to do with rigged tests and unfair scoring given to Jews in Soviet Russia and has nothing to do with idiots thinking that it does.
36% of Asian identifying students scored 700 and above on math!? That’s remarkable. That much of an edge over whites can’t be just coaching, it must be IQ. A lot of these children have parents who were in the first period of Chinese grad students coming to the US. They were superstar students, top graduates of top Chinese universities in a very tough purely meritocratic system with real exams.
We still get some of those students, but the quality from China isn’t so consistently high. Some of their top students choose to remain in China. Some go into business, now that Mao’s communism is long ago and the country has changed.
On any meritocratic basis, after the SFFA ruling, Asian students should be dominating admitted classes to top universities, 50% or more of admitted students. They should take all the slots now given to underperforming students from “underrepresented minorities”. I’m really shocked by that 36% number.
It’s environment and culture.
It’s an old joke: Did you know that the son of an Asian immigrant can only be three things? A doctor, a lawyer, or a failure.
They highly value academic achievement, and it shows in how they raise their kids.
Meanwhile black inner city families not only don’t value education, they actively attack anybody that DOES value it as ‘acting white’.
Not sure why its a shock that one group overachieves and one group catastrophically underachieves.
Cue Steven He
A bit different from the three things Jewish kids can be: doctor, lawyer, CPA.
Asian average IQ is typically 106 to 108, compared to 100 for whites.
I would have guessed lower.
Why is this at all surprising when the school seem more concerned with pumping a bunch of hormones into kids to block their puberty than with educating them?
AF_Chief_Master_Sgt | September 27, 2023 at 7:24 pm wrote:
“But of course, I bet the students can do some quick math when it comes to selling drugs and collecting payment.”
—————
You should try to tamp down your racist views of Black Americans. As a retired attorney, both as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I have had the privilege of meeting some of the finest Black attorneys and Judges. So go fuck yourself, and put on your KKK clan costume. You are a fucking racist, and in a just society, you should be hanging from a tree.
Aren’t you the one making assumptions about these kids’ race? I don’t see where Chief said anything about black kids, that’s all you.
Isn’t it amazing how the mention of low test scores and drug culture makes some people think of blacks? It’s so weird.
Correct. As I stated in another comment, I attended Baltimore schools and am white. There are still many whites attending Baltimore schools. I never once mentioned race. I was speaking about the failed schools, not the color of the students.
I’m sure his “maff” wasn’t a racial insinuation at all. Come on.
Well Thad. You get your ass kicked once again.
I never mentioned the color of students. I mentioned the failed schools.
And since I was born and raised in Baltimore, the accent there, as lazy as it is, has whites pronouncing math as “Maff” and picture as “pitcher.”
Educate yourself you stupid ass
We’re talking about math. Most lawyers are stronger in other areas, not math. Arguing in court is largely a different skill set, and black people have a particular weakness in math, on the average of course. In fact your statement is logically null. You met some of the finest black attorneys and judges, which does not tell us whether black attorneys and judges are good or not, just that there is a range of ability among these black practitioners and you met some of those at the top of that range. And they all passed the bar exam, which still hasn’t been weakened too much as far as I know.
From what I have seen, black people often have good verbal skills, but poor reasoning.
You can fuck yourself, you self-important asshat. I don’t give a flying Fûck if you were a prosecutor or defense attorney, or made your living masturbating to porn.
I was born in Baltimore, attended Baltimore schools when schools there educated and were not merely day care centers for single parent bastards who abuse any other student who dares to “act white” and pursue educational opportunities.
I have a BS in Finance and Accounting, and an MBA from American University. I know the importance of education. Most kids in Baltimore schools couldn’t qualify to clean the floors of university, let alone attend because of the poor quality of schools.
So, you are the fûcking KKK, “I hate kneegrows because I want to keep them on the stupidity plantation.” If you are black, you are a disgrace to your race and house knicker.
If you are white, your are truly an enabler by keeping blacks in a failed educational environment that shackles blacks to the plantation.
Furthermore, with your bullshit “I know black people and some are my friends” racist tropes proves that you wear blacks skin like a badge of honor.
Get out of my face you jack off. I am sick and tired of your sanctimonious bullshït.
And if you threaten me with hanging one more time, LI won’t have to cancel your account.
JR is into his feelings again. Let it out, big guy.
You from Baltimore?
None of have a choice regarding our innate intelligence, and it is not white or Asian’s fault that they evolved higher intelligence than than original humans in Africa.
Check the proficiency of Cultural Marxism, bet its in the high scores
Shocking?
I am not shocked. We have been working for years to bring equity and the only wat to get there is to have everyone equally untaught.
It’s just a simple clerical error. The study needed to look for their scores under “Maf”.
Better be careful. Thad and KR are gonna shit in your Cheerios bowl and call you a racist. Because to them, Maf points directly to black kids.
Something interesting in archeology is that Neanderthals may well have been the source intelligence for European linage.
The only group with worse test scores than inner city public school stiudents are their teachers. The education department is the DUMBEST department in every college or university burdened with one. They are IDIOTS. This is not a matter of opinion but clear, hard fact. The Education students score the lowest of anyone – and that includes the brain-dead morons in sociology, which is no easy feat.
And yet, these idiots have the gall to think that they should be telling America what children should be learning and how they should be learning it. Every single “educator” should have to wear his or her SAT, GRE, and IQ scores on their forehead so that every time one of them opens his mouth everyone can see what sort of a moron is talking and that that person should not be taken seriously for anything more complicated than instructions on mopping up floors.
It is infuriating to know how stupid the people in Education are and to see how they pretend that they should be in charge of anything involving knowledge. Curricula are for the parents and their representatives to decide, and there should not be one peep out of the “education” idiots.
Further, teachers’ unions are illegal (as all public sector unions are) and should be abolished immediately.
I came from a multi generational family of teachers, but had an entrepreneurial streak. My father carried on at length about how stupid educator curriculum for educators was.
I am training a student teacher. I am having to spend a lot of time getting him to form a coherent understanding of a lot of the content. Education majors really don’t have to take very many classes in their content area.
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; and those who can’t teach, teach teachers.
No, those who cannot teach become coaches and then administrators.
There is more than a.grain of truth in this.
Am I the one who caught the irony here?
“This is when people get fired,” said C4. “When you have this much of a ringing failure in your school, it should cost somebody their jobs.”
Channel 4 (or whatever) fails MY English language proficiency test. “Somebody” is singular. “Their jobs” is plural.
Grammar and spelling usually don’t count in standardized testing.
They do on the SAT. There are a couple subsections on word usage and grammar. In fact, since those things are no longer taught in school (the English-teacher profession literally refuses to teach them) it would help students maybe 50 points or more to do some practice tests and really work to learn the required grammar rules. They’re not that hard, so it’s the easiest 50 points they’ll ever see.
The SAT does, but not the standardized testing in K-12 do not. The pressure regarding testing is so high that the instruction is geared to it every single day.
Maybe he has two jobs.
I think the “their” is the pronoun for the “somebody” and is used to meet Woke standards. The previously correct pronoun would be the universal “he” or the cobbled up “he/she” or “(s)he”.
I am not an English major (by a long shot) but my high school taught diagramming of sentences, as did middle school…. nearly 65 years ago.
I use IT for non binary.
Yeah. “Their” used to be slang and informal and a bit dumb sounding, but not having a gender-neutral pronoun was annoying. I didn’t mind that “their” became acceptable, swept in by a woke movement.
I used to hate diagramming sentences. I didn’t get it, because I knew what a proper English sentence was just by hearing or reading it, I really did and was always right, why diagram the stupid thing? Then I started learning German grammar (right across the hall from the English class) and it all fell into place, when I had to start over in a new albeit similar language.
Mythology too. I couldn’t make myself pay attention to Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology”, but now I’m interested in some of those myths. I’m still reliving and improving my understanding of material from 9th grade, over 50 years ago, when all the above happened.
That highlights the one slight disagreement I have with ThePrimordialOrderedPair.
There is one department that rivals education in low standards. journalism.
Baltimore is basically just Haiti but with generous welfare benefits.
Four of the top five schools are city wide schools and not “neighborhood” schools. You have to test, have the grades and apply to go to those schools.
(The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Western High School, City College, and the Baltimore School for the Arts.)
Poly and Western literally sit side by side. They are attached to each other and share the same open spaces and athletic facilities. They are no where near the inner city. This is not a failure of inner city schools. This is a failure of the school system itself and heads should roll.
To illustrate the decline, when I graduated from Poly, I carried with me 18 college credits to every school to which I applied. The level of learning was that high.
Now, no one can do math.
Baltimore spends the third most per student for cities in the country. For that, Baltimore students rank second from the bottom in education in the country.
It is also ridiculous that Fox45 talked to Sheila Dixon. Dixon is running for mayor but in 2009 when she was mayor, Dixon was indicted on twelve felony and misdemeanor counts, including perjury, theft, and misconduct. The charges stem partly from incidents in which she allegedly misappropriated gift cards intended for the poor.
She was convicted and forced to resign.
Nothing like a criminal talking about how others should do better and be accountable.
This really is a mystery. Isn’t there a single bright kid who, despite whatever mis-education happens at school, could not be prevented from learning the basic math skills required for grade level proficiency? That seems impossible, almost as hard as if every student in the whole city had tested proficient.
Reminds me of the guy who scored 200 on the SAT and was admitted to Harvard. Scoring 200 is a pretty strong indicator he knew all the right answers to avoid them.
Peer pressure, education is very actively dissed by blacks, it is ingrained in their culture.
Finally….you admit the role of environment, welcome to the party.
I never said that environment played no role. clearly it can cause underperformance, but it cannot overcome an innately low IQ.
Sowell was an example of that. In my quest for knowledge, I ranged far and wide, way beyond my grade level. Classwork was generally boring, so I found my own challenges.
Are you sure those exam schools weren’t excluded? Because then the numbers seem a little more possible. Anyone with half a brain (standards have fallen of course) was at an exam school, and the other students just sucked, the teachers saw their jobs as hopeless, and the whole thing was a waste of time and money at those other schools.
Really those kids, most of whom couldn’t read and had illiterate parents, should have been learning practical job skills or simply working. They weren’t learning anything useful in a classroom after having failed to learn to read. I would start with a focus on reading instruction in elementary school, because if they kids learned phonics and could read, even slowly at first, they would not be as disastrous as they are.
They were cited in the story as the highest or best and that in aggregate they had only 11% of tested students meeting the proficiency standard in math. It was 13 other schools in the district (roughly 40%) that produced not a single proficient student.
OK, well that’s still disastrous but a bit more plausible. Even the exam schools had only 11% proficient? I’m puzzled. Are there so few reasonably competent kids that they’re down to picking kids who can’t read and still guess at words, to fill those classes?
And that isn’t all the kids’ fault, if they’re using “whole language” reading, which we’ve had to fight long and hard to get out of our schools. For some reason English teachers resist teaching plain phonics. They think that students guessing words from pictures and “context” is more “engaging”, since it generates more class discussion. This is not even education, it’s garbage.
Second comment and illustration of the systemic failure.
Last spring there was a shooting at Baltimore’s Edmondson Mall. It is a strip mall that has been around forever and literally across the street from Edmondson High School. (The school does not perform well.)
In the shooting, four kids were shot as they had left school to go across to the mall and get some Popeye’s chicken. They were sitting on the curb of the mall when they were shot.
Citizens screamed about the shooting as they should.
Politicians and City School Administrators stood in front of mics and the press to place blame and address what they saw as the problem.
Did they say the kids were at fault for leaving the school grounds without permission? Nope.
Did they blame the schools for not keeping the kids in school? Nope.
Did they blame parents for them not teaching kids to not go off campus? Nope.
Did they blame the teachers for not noticing the kids were not in class? Nope.
Did the blame the School Resource Officers (in school police) for not seeing the kids walk out and not stop them? Nope.
Did they blame the shooter? Nope.
The Administrators and the Mayor blamed Popeye’s.
Because the food in the schools is total garbage and kids had been leaving schools during lunch in large numbers, the City passed a bill forbidding restaurants from selling food to students during school hours.
Clearly Popey’s was at fault for making food that is so tasty and better than that in schools that kids can’t resist it.
As for the school, the teachers, the students, the police and school administrators, they all got a pass from politicians,
It is the only “pass” the schools got that year.
Shameful. School lunches are unbelievably terrible, though.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/09/amish-millionaires-built-on-an-8th-grade-education-podcast/
SHARYL ATTKISSON produced an amazing podcast, just a few months ago.
Believe me, you will not regret listening to some or all of it — having to do with the way the Amish look at schooling, working, living.
The FOX45 story is very misleading. Need to check out the comments on that article. Here’s one:
‘This is how disinformation spreads–by intentional dishonesty. MCAP only goes up to Algebra 1. Only passing Algebra 1 on the MCAP assessment is required for graduation. My daulghter [sic] goes to Poly and has a 5+ GPA and scored over a 1250 on her PSAT last year. She didn’t take the MCAP. Why? Because she tested out of algebra 1 when she came to Poly–as MOST POLY STUDENTS DO. (She completed algebra 1 in the 8th grade and tested out of it before even coming to Poly.) Why do you think only 809 students across FIVE high schools took the MCAP math test when it’s a required test for graduation? (Poly alone has over 1300 kids there.) Because the rest of the student bodies at the five high schools tested out of it and didn’t take it. Either provide ACCURATE reporting or retract the story. This is absolute intellectual dishonesty by a supposed “news organization”.’
So the vast majority of students didn’t even take the test, but of those who did (809 students) only 11% were proficient. Knowing that, I’m wondering about the admissions process at these top schools and whether it has been adjusted to be more equitable, as happened at Thomas Jefferson (TJ) here in Fairfax County Virginia.
Thank you. The data makes more sense now.
“Adjusted to make it more equitable”? I hope not, if quality is to remain anywhere in the system. TJ is a disaster now.
I can only assume that prior to the change in the admissions process at TJ having a group of students there scoring so poorly on a math proficiency test would have been unheard of. I know nothing about these schools in Baltimore, but based on the comments on the FOX story they seem to be very selective. So why were these 809 students even admitted to these schools? It sounds like they don’t belong there and their needs would be better met in a less academically rigorous environment.
“When you have this much of a ringing failure in your school, it should cost somebody their jobs.”
Why? Look at who they are expected to teach?
Tough cookies. Consistent failure should not be acceptable. If these teachers and administrators are convinced the Students can’t be taught then fire their asses and bring in a new regime.
Start the firing at the level prior to when the Student performance begins drops off the cliff. If it is the middle school failing the HS or the elementary school failing the middle school or just the HS then some or all of the teachers and administrators at those levels are failing and should be fired. Claw back as much of their unearned salaries as possible from their pensions and 403B plans. Go after them civil suits and with criminal charges for fraud. Every public employee showing up to work to punch the clock and draw a salary but not deliver a minimally acceptable work product is IMO stealing from taxpayers.
Feminism has to answer for the increasingly poor quality of educators in this country.
When relatively few women were in the workforce and job choices were more limited, the best and brightest tended to move into teaching a a career.
Whether or not you believe getting women out of the home (and diluting the workforce, lowing wages overall and ending up in today’s world where 1 income is no longer sufficient to raise a worker-class family) is good or not, the Marxist arc has an obvious endpoint.
A prosperous, well-educated and moral people are not attracted to the gateway drug of socialism, so the peddlers must work first to destroy prosperity and dumb down the electorate.
Here’s why….the questions need to be socio-economically relevant:
A load of looted merchandise leaves PA in a stolen truck traveling at 120 MPH and gets pitted in 7 hours later by the state patrol. How much should you pay the driver in Fentanyl ?
“Jamal, Tyrone and their associates shoplift $50,000 worth of merchandise from Target, CVS, Walmart and Best Buy. How much will they need to sell their goods for, in order to realize a profit?”
This is a trick question, given that the thieves cost basis in the goods is zero, they could sell them for any amount and realize a profit.
Careful guyjones. It won’t be long until KKKJR threatens hanging from a tree for being a racist like he did with me.
I’m prepared. If someone did raise an objection, I’d point them to the crime news of any major urban American city. What passes for alleged “racism” to some imbeciles, is fairly called “reality” and “objective truth” by rational-minded people.
Black Americans commit over 50% of all homicides and ~37% of all violent felonies, despite constituting ~12.5% of the U.S. population. Those are the “racist” FBI crime statistics, talking. Some people can’t handle the truth.
Careful Andy. It won’t be long until KKKJR threatens to hang you from a tree for being a racist.
This is what happens when the vile Dumb-o-crats protect corrupt school administrators and incompetent teachers who focus on indoctrinating students in Leftist ideology and agitprop instead of teaching fundamental subject matter, deem mathematics to be allegedly racist, undermine academic achievement at every turn and oppose charter schools and vouchers as a means of giving parents an alternative to failed public schools.
Baltimore math exam question:
If Tyrone steals one car, and Jermaine robs 2 liquor stores, how many babies will Mona Leisha have by each of them?
According to KKK JR and Thad, it depends on whether Tyrone and Jermaine are black, which then makes us racist and deserve to be hanging from a tree (JRs earlier comment to me).
If Tyrone and Jermaine are white, then impregnating Mona Leisha would be rape, and then she gets any profit for their ill gotten gains.
But if they are black, someone else gets to pay child support.