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Zero students were proficient in math at 13 Baltimore city high schools in Maryland, according to state math exams.
Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of the Baltimore-based non-profit People Empowered by the Struggle, said that the findings were akin to “educational homicide.”
“There is no excuse,” he told Fox Baltimore. “We have a system that’s just running rogue, and it starts at the top.”
“It’s not a funding issue. We’re getting plenty of funding,” said Rodriguez.“I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue.”
The 13 schools where zero students demonstrated proficiency in math were out of 33 Baltimore City Schools, meaning 40 percent of Baltimore City Schools did not produce a single student proficient in math. Making matters worse, the only reason why FOX45 obtained an unredacted copy of the report is because a source provided it:
The list of 13 schools includes some of Baltimore’s most well-known high schools, including Patterson High School, Frederick Douglass, and Reginald F. Lewis.
But that’s not the only alarming finding we made. In those 13 high schools, 1,736 students took the test, and 1,295 students, or 74.5%, scored a one out of four. One is the lowest level, meaning those students were not even close to proficient.
Last school year, Baltimore City Schools received $1.6 billion from taxpayers, the most ever. The district also received $799 million in Covid relief funding from the federal government. And still, not a single student tested at 13 City high schools scored proficient on the state math test.
Project Baltimore produced a similar report in 2017, which also found that 13 schools produced zero students proficient in math. Some of those schools reappeared on this year’s list.
“We’re still dealing with these same issues year after year,” said Rodriguez. “It’s just scary to me and alarming to me because we know that what’s happening now, you know, it’s just opening up the floodgates to the school-to-prison pipeline.”
When pressed, City Schools said that the test results stem from years of minimal funding and the coronavirus pandemic.
“Make no mistake: these recent increases do not diminish or patch over years of chronic underfunding that has directly contributed to our current outcomes. That recovery takes an equal or more significant amount of time to remediate,” it said.
“Right now, the facts are clear: City Schools’ students have earned two consecutive years of improved scores on the math MCAP following national decreases during the COVID pandemic. Seven of eight grade levels experienced growth in math between SY2021-22 and SY2022-23, mirroring growth in Maryland overall,” it added.
