Project Baltimore - You Can Not Buy Proficiency...
that would first require an understanding of economics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Baltimore, Maryland.
Delaware's neighboring city. A city not too far from historic Annapolis and our Nation's Capitol.
Baltimore is suffering an educational crisis. Newly released 2023 test results reveal that in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math!
At 13 Baltimore City high schools, zero students tested proficient on 2023 state math exam1
September 18, 2023 | Project Baltimore
33 high schools were tested last spring. Of those 33 high schools, Project Baltimore looked at the results of 32 of those high schools. (excluding Eager St. Academy which is located within the Baltimore City prison) 40% of all Baltimore high schools could not produce even a single student who can complete math at grade level.
Baltimore City Schools received 1.6 Billion ($1,600,000,000) from tax payers, and an additional three-quarters of a Billion dollars ($799,000,000) from the federal government in Covid relief funding (ESSER).
Baltimore City Schools is the third most funded school system among the 100 largest in America. Baltimore City schools are also the third lowest performing schools in America, ahead of only Cleveland and Detroit.
Last year, when City Schools was ranked fifth in the nation, it spent $15,168 per student. Now, it’s spending $16,184 or nearly $1,000 more per student.2
With all that said, lawmakers in Annapolis voted to increase public school funding by hundreds of millions of dollars this year.
Low proficiency rates beset school districts nationwide — in Oregon, Nevada, Illinois, and more. Minnesota also reported a zero percent math proficiency rate in 75 of its schools during the 2022-23 school year.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Ben Carson spoke in Georgetown, Delaware where he references Baltimore's 0% proficiency in math. Here is a clip from that evening.3
This ends when accountability begins! Eroding academic standards, lax discipline, overpaid administration, underpaid teachers, minimal parental involvement, and nearly no oversight.
“No child left behind” has turned into “All children pass go”
Project Baltimore4 is a series of investigative reports conducted by the Fox 45 news team in Baltimore. It was Project Baltimore who gathered & reported the information detailed above. The only reason Project Baltimore could tell that story was because a source gave them the raw data before it was redacted by the state.5
The goal of “Project Baltimore” is two-fold. First, the project seeks to give a voice to the voiceless; namely the hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, parents and taxpayers, who expect the best performance possible from their local school systems. Secondly, the project seeks to inform the public about how their public schools are being operated, how their children are being educated and how their tax dollars are being spent.
Harvard University-trained mathematician Dr. Jonathan Farley even reached out Baltimore City Schools to offer his help.6
Farley sent an email to four of the schools which had zero students proficient in math.
“I can increase the number of students proficient in math next year, and I can show you how to get the funding for the program.” Farley sent that email nearly a month ago. He hasn’t heard back.
When asked about the lack of response, Farley said, “It's par for the course. It tells me that most of the educators don't actually care. In fact, what they seem to be more concerned about is just having a high graduation rate, which is, to me, meaningless.”
Listen to these teachers in their own words describe what they see…
This which I am sharing is about Baltimore, not Delaware. So why share? Delaware is traveling down that same dead end road. We don't have to be talking about the continuing failures of our government run education. There's no need to watch our children struggle to read and do arithmetic while simultaneously being pushed along the conveyer belt to graduation. We can clearly see this road leads us off a cliff. We must not do what we see so many in America do right now, which is follow the next person right off the edge of the cliff.
Here is Delaware's state average proficiency for the 2022-2023 schoolyear as reported on the states ‘Delaware Report Card’ website, annotated with the differences in proficiency from the 2021-2022 school year.
As you can, proficiency in Mathematics has slightly increased, while proficiency in ELA has slightly decreased. However, the Graduation Rate is still more than double the highest proficiency!
You do not need to be Harvard University-trained mathematician Dr. Jonathan Farley to see that this math does not add up!
Are you aware that some of Delaware's Elementary, Middle, & High Schools contain less than 10% of students who can read, write, and understand arithmetic at grade level?
The combined Math proficiency in all eight of the schools shown above equals a failing 46.09% proficiency!!
As for education, the reality in Delaware is disheartening. In over 20 schools, only one in ten students is proficient in math or English. In the 2022 national education test, Delaware ranked as the second worst-performing State in 4th-grade reading. Our education outcomes are the worst they have been in 20 years according to the national test.7
Ghost Students & Ghost Classes - Schools deceptively kept students enrolled who have not been to class in excess of a year to inflate enrollment and receive the $15k per student funding - just as shown in the Chicago report.
Failure Factory: Project Baltimore investigates 'ghost students'
Every child in America deserves a quality education, but Fox45 News found many students in Baltimore City are being deprived of that right. This investigation, which is now heading into its third year in 2023, has shed light on the failures of the education system that have impacted generations of students, while providing the impetus for lawmakers and community members to finally make it right.
'We're setting them up to fail' | How Maryland has changed high school graduation requirements
Baltimore is Dying | A WBFF News Documentary
You can read the 2019 U.S. Census spending rankings here: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2019/comm/largest-school-districts.html
🥚 As a sort of ‘Easter Egg' bonus, here is an inspiring clip taken of Dr. Carson speaking in Georgetown about the first time conjoined twins were ever successfully seperated, as well as a not so successful second time.
What is “Project Baltimore”?
“Project Baltimore” is an investigative reporting initiative, which was launched in March 2017, by Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.
What does “Project Baltimore” do?
“Project Baltimore” examines the unique challenges that confront the Baltimore area’s public school systems (city and county). The “Project Baltimore” team of journalists probe a wide array of topics including budgets, school facilities, test scores, teacher pay, school violence, athletics, unions and other components of the education system. Significant emphasis is placed on investigating the Baltimore City Public School System which spends large sums of money on education, but yields sub-standard test score and low graduation rates. The Project Baltimore unit holds leaders accountable and is an advocate for the people. It highlights success stories, but focuses primarily on the troubling aspects of the area’s public school systems.
What is the goal of “Project Baltimore”?
The goal of “Project Baltimore” is two-fold. First, the project seeks to give a voice to the voiceless; namely the hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, parents and taxpayers, who expect the best performance possible from their local school systems. Secondly, the project seeks to inform the public about how their public schools are being operated, how their children are being educated and how their tax dollars are being spent.
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore
At more than 200 Maryland public schools, 5 percent or fewer students scored proficient in Math
October 4th 2023 | Project Baltimore
In the version Project Baltimore obtained from the source, the data shows how many students at those 13 high schools took the state math test and how many scored in each level. Under levels three and four, it’s all zeros, which means not a single student scored proficient.
But the data for those schools released by the state looks much different. The results are gone. In levels one and two, the results are replaced with asterisks. And in levels three and four, all the zeros are shown as less than or equal to 5 percent.
Looking at the state’s data, you would have no idea how big the problem really is at those 13 Baltimore City high schools.