13 Baltimore City High Schools, Zero Students Proficient in Math

An alarming discovery coming out of City Schools. Project Baltimore analyzed 2017 state testing data and found one-third of High Schools in Baltimore, last year, had zero students proficient in math.

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“Nine out of ten black boys in Baltimore City are not reading at grade level,” added [Jack] Pannel [founder of Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys,].

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The charter school also has no entrance exams. What it does have is a school day extended by one hour, a teaching staff that is 60 percent male and shorter class periods. All of it tailored to how boys learn.

“We designed this school to make a fundamental difference in the lives of mostly black and brown boys in the city,” said Pannell.

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But Project Baltimore discovered as this school’s making process, many other city schools seem to be going nowhere.

Project Baltimore analyzed 2017 state test scores released this fall. We paged through 16,000 lines of data and uncovered this: Of Baltimore City’s 39 High Schools, 13 had zero students proficient in math.

Digging further, we found another six high schools where one percent tested proficient. Add it up – in half the high schools in Baltimore City, 3804 students took the state test, 14 were proficient in math.

Zero students proficient in Math:

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With these eye-opening results, Project Baltimore reached to North Avenue. But no one inside the building would sit down to answer our questions. Instead, we got a statement. Concerning our investigation, it read, “These results underscore the urgency of the work we are now pursuing. We must do more to meet the needs of all our students.”

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The statement concludes, “There is no simple answer that will close the achievement gap for Baltimore’s students. Though we all want to see results quickly, the work is hard and will take time.”

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