Dude, I agree with you its weird, I'm not trying to fight you on that.

You asked for the source, I gave it to you, then you started asking me questions about it, which I dont know.

Ive seen people throw trash on the ground next to trash cans

This. Make it easy to do the right thing, and hard and/or painful to do the wrong thing.

[deleted]

I agree with you here. I have a kiddo that will be going into middle school soon and so I have to participate in this school choice system. It’s frustrating because it really exacerbates the inequities within Baltimore society. The parents that have the time and energy and money are more equipped to navigate this convoluted system to get their kids in the “better” schools. Those kids without that support aren’t likely going to get into Roland Park or an Ingenuity program, or even know to apply to the better charter schools that are available in a lottery system (so not grades dependent). It creates segregation- not fully racial, but privilege segregation.

Maybe so. The one chart from Md Board of Ed they include in the article shows that the average in the city is 7% proficient in math. I guess some schools could be at 0% and others higher since it is an average. Pretty bad. Even the highest scoring county in the state, Carroll, only managed to teach 38% of their students to a proficient level.

[removed]

Thanks so much for the additional context. Adds nuance for those of us without kids and/or working outside of the education sector. That said, do you and other educators who feel similarly about the excessiveness of the curriculum have any means of advocating for streamlining it? Is this an issue that's generally tracking with parents? Lastly, does the Kirwan/Blueprint plan address this issue?

Ahh gotcha, fair enough. Yeah I honestly don't know which union school admins are a part of, but I'd assume AFSCME?

I think that they are misrepresenting whatever data they have.

MCAP has Math testing for grades 1-8, Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry. The results are not broken down by age. What criteria are they using for "High School Proficiency"

Judging based on other "Project Baltimore" pieces, I would be very hesitant to trust anything from them. If their numbers are solid, why not include data and methodology?

The guy above did not make a direct accusation, but implied that the hate Police Unions get from people supportive of organized labor should also target teacher's unions.

I'm a teacher in the city, I'm all too familiar with admin issues. Admin and budget issues happen when teachers aren't a part of the process and North Ave gets staffed by people getting their backs scratched. No better place to look at extremely sketchy budgets and funding than charter schools which exist almost completely to go around the teachers unions and traditional public schools.

Keep up the good fight!

There are so many falsehoods here man, jesus.

First of all 60 million (wherever you got that number from) is nothing compared to deaths caused by america, colonial Europe, mid century fascists, famines in India and Ireland caused by Britain, American sponsored genocide in the Philippines, millions dead in the Middle East, etc. then start throwing in the millions who die each year from starvation, homelessness, lack of healthcare/health insurance, unsafe work conditions.

Again, deaths in mid-century communist states were bad (literally any communist or socialist will agree), but this is a fraction of deaths attributed to capitalist countries.

Saying that both systems will leave “fat cats and starving dogs” is true but still not 1 for 1. In the Soviet Union, even the most elite politicians lived in humble apartments. While they certainly enjoyed things that others didn’t, it’s pretty inaccurate to compare this to the inequalities of America or the western capitalist world. I don’t think I need to explain to you how well our wealth and elite live versus how those left behind live. I mean just take a look around our city to see the height of poverty.

Also, we’ve had many good studies comparing “socialist” states to capitalist ones at similar stages of development, and the socialist ones consistently outperformed their peers and usually had qualities of life on par with far MORE developed capitalist nations. The CIA even had a study in the 70’s or 80’s where they compared nutritional intake in the USA to the USSR and the average Soviet citizen was receiving a higher caloric diet than an American. Additionally, in the USSR, China, Cuba, even the DPRK, post-revolution reforms led to massive increases in literacy and life expectancy, guaranteed housing and jobs, and other QOL markers. We only need to look to the dissolution of the USSR to compare systems. The fall of the USSR led to the greatest decrease in life expectancy in modern history in a non war period. Many Eastern European countries are literally just now getting back to the level of GDP they enjoyed pre-collapse.

I know that’s a lot of text, but bottom line, we have data to compare systems and we have a century of political experiments to observe, and the overwhelming evidence is that socialist and communist states have the average citizen a better life than they would have had under capitalism. If you want a good starter text on this stuff, “Blackshirts and Reds” by Michael Parenti is a really informative read and touches on a lot of these comparisons.

I think that they are misrepresenting whatever data they have.

MCAP has Math testing for grades 1-8, Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry.

So I'd be interested to know what criteria they're using to measure High school and Elementary school proficiency. This strikes me as nothing more than another 'Project Baltimore' gotcha piece to appeal to their base (majority of whom probably aren't proficient enough in math to grasp statistics).

If it's not? Why aren't they providing the data and methodology.

I'm sorry but where did you get the idea that the county became majority black in 2020?? Not only is it not majority black, it is still majority white at 55%. Even Howard County has dipped below 50% white. Black people don't even make up 1/3rd of the county population. Not to mention that the majority black parts of the county have probably been majority or plurality black at this point for 30 years. I agree with what you are saying because the original guy commenting is talking eugenics, but the county is still majority white.

Yes, a lot of what we teach here in Algebra 1 really aligns more traditionally with Algebra 2 concepts, and Algebra 2 is really the first truly high level math students have access to in high school, so it's no longer practical for the vast majority of students. I truly love teaching math to SWD, but man do I hate how bloated and complex the curriculum is!

Very interesting context! The example questions you provided were definitely harder than I expected…more like Algebra 2 level in Virginia.

Not trolling I am genuinely interested in your point. Are you saying since it's a Fox news story there are really fewer than 23 schools that have no students proficient in math? If so how much do you think they are lying. Two schools, ten, all proficient?

Lolzz I also went to school in Virginia so growing up I knew SOL as Standards of Learning long before I knew its other more common meaning 😆 The SOLs came out in the 90s and I was among the first test groups in elementary school, but they've had the same name since then. 25+ years of SOL students in Virginia!

>Low literacy and behavioral issues lead to increased prevalence of criminal activity and other associated antisocial behavior. This costs the city of Baltimore billions of dollars a year in economic costs, due to the fact that it takes a person with a lot of grit, determination, and relatively high tolerance of risk to move here, be economically productive, and raise a family, creating a high barrier for the best and brightest (even with Johns Hopkins). This city is relatively will-integrated and deeply affordable compared to the rest of the East Coast. It should be booming and rapidly growing, but it isn’t.

You're correct on this part; strongly agree. But all the other major east coast cities have already been where Baltimore now is. For that reason I think your proposal isn't the most feasible. Instead, Baltimore's elected officials need to unbury their heads from the sand and actually focus aggressively on growth-oriented public policy and investments to address affordable and inclusionary housing, land use, transportation, and real estate tax reform. I realize this might be asking for much, but given all the cities that are eating Baltimore's lunch, should it be?

Baltimore isn't growing because: we're an old historic city with car-centric Sun Belt city aspirations; our leaders resist fundamental principles of good urbanism; and for some reason said leaders find it perfectly okay to charge us double the price of their competitors for shoddy public service delivery. Baltimore really shows no urgency to sustainably attract economic opportunity to the city. While every student here can't become a world-class scholar, a growing city with more businesses of all sizes, that at minimum pay living wages, could provide more opportunities for steady employment and improved quality of life for less-educated residents.

All this to say that a growing city that is more dense, accessible, and economically competitive can help deconcentrate poverty, which can lead to improved educational outcomes. But leadership needs to have a holistic view of the city and the willingness to move beyond status quo at a faster-than-marginal pace.

https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2018/10/25/state-audit-finds-poor-fiscal-management-issues-at-city-schools/

I don't think anyone is accusing the teachers of anything, moreso the administration.

The last external audit from 2018 was scathing, found tens of millions in waste, and that the city failed to correct many of these problems from the previous external audit in 2012.

Maybe if North Avenue was actually held accountable and so much money wasn't being wasted annually then maybe these teachers wouldn't have to do shit like paying for classroom supplies out of their own pocket, just for example.

Virginia needs a new acronym guy

You gave me some data, and tried to pass it off as the Data that Fox was using, but even given a cursory glance it's clearly not. For example, Baltimore School for the Arts isn't even in the set you linked, not even as an asterisk.

So you give me some edgey remark about how "books don't link their data hurr hurr hurr" then condescendingly try to show something that supports your case... and it doesn't.

Generally, candidates like to float this out early to see what the news commentary and social media reaction is so they can plan accordingly. But yes, it's not much to care about yet for the average voter.

I've been looking to see a comment like this online since the 1990s. Bless you for posting it. If I had awards to give I'd give you all of them.