Something doesn’t add up.
None of the students at 40% of Baltimore’s public high schools tested proficient on the state math exam given this past spring — with a staggering three-quarters earning the lowest possible score, an alarming report revealed this week.
At 13 of the school district’s 32 public high schools, 1,295 students of the 1,736 who took the exams scored a 1 out of 4, meaning they were nowhere close to proficiency, Fox 45 reported.
“This is educational homicide,” Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of the Baltimore-based nonprofit People Empowered by the Struggle, told the outlet.
The results were shockingly low even at the city’s top high schools, where just 92 students, or 11.4% of the 809 students who took the exam, tested proficient, the outlet later found.
“Parents, guardians, supporters, need to be outraged,” said Sheila Dixon, a Democratic Baltimore mayoral candidate.
“It’s sad and disheartening because, first of all, today, more than ever, the school system has the money and the resources.”
At the city’s top five high schools, just over 11% tested proficient in math.FOX 5 News
During the 2022-23 school year, the Baltimore City Public Schools had an annual budget of $1.6 billion, its largest ever, and also scored $799 million in federal COVID-19 grants.
“It’s not a funding issue. We’re getting plenty of funding,” Rodriguez, whose organization called on Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises to resign in 2021 over issues including low test scores and plummeting graduation rates, told Fox 45.
“I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue.”
Baltimore City Public Schools had an annual budget of $1.6 billion in addition to $799 million in federal COVID-19 grants. FOX 5 News
Santelises, who has been running the city’s public schools since 2016, raked in $445,000 in her total compensation last year, making her the top earning public-school district leader in Maryland despite managing its worst-performing school district, NBC 15 reported.
The math scores mirror those from 2017, when zero students at 13 Baltimore high schools also tested as not proficient in the subject on the state exams, many from the same schools that had poor scores this spring.
“We need to hold the school CEO and the administration accountable,” said Dixon, who is calling for Santelises’ resignation. “We have to have answers, and we can’t just get a press release from the school system saying that we’re working on it.
Baltimore residents and leaders are calling for Baltimore City Public Schools head Sonja Santelises to resign. FOX 5 News
The city’s school district claimed that despite the funding windfall last year, the students’ latest poor performance on the math exams is the result of underfunding over the course of previous academic years.
It noted that in seven of eight grade levels, math proficiencies improved compared to the previous year.
“We acknowledge that some of our high school students continue to experience challenges in math following the pandemic,” the district told Fox 45 in a statement.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-high-schools-failed-math-proficiency-exam/