Although the so-called learning loss associated with widespread school closures during the pandemic has caused students nationwide to fall behind, the impact is far more acute in certain areas of the country than others.
According to one recent report, there is not even one student at two-fifths of the high schools in Baltimore, Maryland, who achieved proficiency in math as of the standardized exams administered earlier this year. That amounts to more than a dozen schools without any proficient students.
Worse yet, about three-fourths of the roughly 2,000 students who took the test received the lowest score possible in math.
While many on the left insist that insufficient education funding is to blame for low academic achievement, Baltimore City Public Schools seems to disprove that notion. The city spends more per pupil than all but three other districts in the entire nation, devoting an average of $21,606 to each student this year alone.
Baltimore’s school funding is in the top ten nationally, yet 41% of the city’s high schoolers have a GPA below 1.0.
Surely more money will solve the problem, right? Right…? Bueller? pic.twitter.com/k2HVG5CXLB
— Connor Boyack 📚 (@cboyack) August 7, 2023
Furthermore, Baltimore had the third-highest per-student administrative budget in the country as of 2020.
Earlier this year, the city council moved to allocate even more taxpayer money for public school educators and administrators. Much of the money ostensibly being spent on improving student performance in the city has come from a Democrat-backed program called the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which promised “a comprehensive overhaul of education” but has thus far failed to deliver.
When then-Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, moved to veto the bill outlining its creation, the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode his authority and the program was ultimately implemented.
Critics say that money hasn’t gone where lawmakers promised but has instead fallen victim to waste, fraud, or corruption. The results seem to bolster those claims.
When a student with a 0.13 GPA who had only passed three classes in the span of four years sparked an internal investigation, officials determined that there was a ploy at his school to artificially increase student grades.
“I’m all for funding schools,” said a concerned father who sued the district earlier this year. “However, you don’t just keep giving money without investigation on where the money has gone, especially with the amount of corruption and misuse of funds that have taken place for years in Baltimore City.”
