Funding Not a Factor in Failure of Baltimore City Schools, Says School Choice Advocate

Opportunity zones in Baltimore, Md., on Feb. 3, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Even though Maryland’s Baltimore City School district is ranked at the top for public school funding, it has abysmal academic results.

Denisha Allen, founder of student advocacy group Black Minds Matter, said the problem is that Maryland officials don’t know what is really going on at the classroom level.

“The reason why we have such continual low performance in education for Baltimore City students is that we have a disconnect between the higher-ups—the administration—and the people who are actually in the classroom,” Allen told Fox News.

The Maryland School Report Card for the 2021–2022 school year found that less than 9 percent of black students were proficient in math and less than 30 percent were proficient in language arts, even though the school system has one of the largest budgets in the country.

In addition, Project Baltimore, an investigative project of Fox45 in Baltimore, found that in 23 Baltimore schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math.

The Epoch Times reached out to the superintendent of Baltimore City Public Schools, Sonja Santelises, and the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, Mohammad Choudhury, for comment about the lack of academic achievement in Baltimore schools.

“The challenges of educating students in areas with high concentrations of poverty along with historic and chronic levels of underfunding are clear and require greater discussion than a response to an email,” Sherry Christian, public relations manager for the district, said in an emailed statement.

Christian shared a link to the district’s COVID-19 recovery plan.

Baltimore’s education budget increased 16 percent for the 2023 school year, up to $1.62 billion, which translates to about $21,000 per student.

“There’s so much money, so little result,” Allen said.

Governor Responds

The Maryland Report Card found Baltimore City had more low-rated schools than any other county in the state. It showed that only one Baltimore City school had a five-star rating, while 75 percent of its schools had either a one-star or two-star rating.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said these results are “unacceptable.”

“We’ve got to move and take it seriously,” Moore said when asked if he thought the state should launch a probe into the problems. “We’ve got to do more.”

“We also know that what’s happening on the state level with the Board of Education, we’ve got some real work we’ve got to do, and everybody’s got to have a level of involvement into that, to know that we’re going to be transparent and we’re going to be accountable," Moore told Fox45 on March 13.

Statewide, Maryland schools had better ratings, with 215 schools with 5=five stars, 413 with four stars, 431 with three stars, and 252 with wither one or two stars.

Some disagree with Allen and believe the lack of funds going toward school infrastructure is affecting Baltimore city students’ achievement.

A 2022 study by Johns Hopkins University found that out of all Maryland counties, Baltimore’s buildings were in the worst state of disrepair and negatively affected student academic outcomes.

Between 2014 and 2019, according to the report, the poor physical infrastructure of schools caused Baltimore students to lose about 1.5 million hours—or 221,000 full school days—of instruction. About 90 percent of those missed hours happened in 2018 and 2019, when systems failed in extreme heat and cold.

Allen, however, believes school choice is a key element to changing the trajectory of Baltimore City schools because the school system is failing students. She believes parents should be able to choose the educational experience that allows their child to succeed, with the money following the child.

“Parents are able to shop around for the best learning environment for their kid, and then that parent can enroll them in that school,” Allen said. “Maybe it’s a home-school program. Maybe it’s an online virtual school. Maybe it’s a private school. Maybe it’s a charter school. Maybe that public school actually did work for that one kid and they stayed there.”