$1.8 Billion - Only 10% of Kids Can Do Math

Last week a friend asked if I had seen recently released data comparing his children’s school district to other districts across the state. The information was making the rounds among parents, and my friend was justifiably frustrated at the steady decline in academic proficiency. While I was not familiar with the specific stats from his district, the feeling of surprise, even betrayal, upon seeing actual performance data from an under-performing school or district is something I’ve witnessed many times. I’ve never relished telling parents that their child’s school is low performing, but I believe academic transparency is a precursor to making informed decisions about how to best meet a child’s educational needs.

Now multiply my friend’s experience by infinity. That is how it feels to read Failure Factory by Chris Papst. This book was one of the best pieces of non-fiction I read last year despite the content being utterly disheartening. Following is a condensed version of my conversation with Papst and the full interview is featured in the video above.

Papst is a National Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and 2023 Maryland State Conference NAACP Vanguard Award recipient. He leads Project Baltimore at Fox 45, a dedicated public education investigative unit he has helmed since 2017. He is the author of Failure Factory, a book chronicling eight years of reporting on Baltimore City Public Schools.

Zero of them were proficient in any state testing.

QUALITY MATTERS: You talk at the start of your book about how, with shrinking newsrooms, journalists are now covering lots of different issues. You went and got a big tranche of K-12 education data in Maryland, and you started seeing where it would lead you. But your book also talks about how data can be manipulated. How much veracity do you put in the data being reported specifically by Baltimore City Schools?

CHRIS PAPST: So it depends on what the data is. In 2017, I decided I’m going to look at state test scores in Baltimore City. Every year, it’s a federal mandate that states have to give standardized tests to students in third through eighth grade and also in high school algebra and geometry. And when I looked at that data — it’s not really organized, all the data is kind of there in massive spreadsheets — what I found was there were six schools in Baltimore City in 2017 that did not have any students proficient in anything. Math, reading, science. Six entire schools, hundreds of kids. Zero of them were proficient in any state testing.

The way that data is manipulated in a school is really interesting. Standardized testing is really the only type of data in a school that cannot be manipulated. Schools can — and easily, often do — manipulate attendance records, arrest data, suspension data, safety data, chronic absenteeism. They can manipulate all of that data. Enrollment data is manipulated. But the one thing that’s really, really hard to manipulate is standardized testing. If you really want to know how a school is performing, the only data you should look at is standardized testing, because that is going to be your truest indication of where the education level is in that school.

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QM: When you published that first story about six schools lacking even a single student proficient in any subject area, did you basically think that was a mic drop moment?

PAPST: Yeah, I think that’s true. When we first found that — when we looked through the data — first off, we didn’t think it was true. How can this be possible that you have a school system that gets $1.3 billion a year and there are six entire schools with no kids proficient in any state testing?

When we published the story in 2017, I did think it was going to go national, which it did. But secondly, I thought, okay, now you’re going to have the governor, the mayor, all these people saying, whoa, what is happening in our school system? We cannot allow this to happen. But the opposite occurred. Outside of Baltimore, there was outrage. This story was everywhere. But inside of Baltimore, it was complete crickets. Nobody said a word.

Baltimore City Schools is 93% minority. And no one said, hey, maybe we should think about giving these mostly minority students a better education. Nothing happened, at least from the leaders in Baltimore City. And that was very weird for me because I’m not from Baltimore, I’m from Pennsylvania.

If a story came out in my school system where there were schools that had no kids proficient in anything, the superintendent would have been gone the next day, the principals would have been gone the next day, parents would have been at the school board meeting.

Which is why eight years later, I wrote this book, *Failure Factory*, because it has simply been expected in Baltimore that taxpayers give this system now $1.8 billion a year, and 10% of the kids in the entire school system in 2024 were proficient in math. What’s happening in Baltimore is certainly spreading throughout the country and is leading to disastrous results.

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QM: How do you strike the balance between the pursuit of truth, sharing the truth, and doing it in a high-quality, effective manner?

PAPST: As an investigative journalist, my job is to track tax dollars — how they’re being spent and whether taxpayers are getting a return on that investment. When you read *Failure Factory*, none of the data is my data. All of the data is from the Maryland State Department of Education and Baltimore City Public Schools.

In 2017, Baltimore City Schools had a $1.3 billion budget. In 2024, they had a $1.7 billion budget. The amount of money going into Baltimore City Schools went up $400 million. With that money, the school system hired 1,300 additional adults. But at that same time, enrollment went down 6,500 kids. So you have $400 million additional dollars, 1,300 more adults, educating 6,500 fewer kids.

The graduation rate in 2017 was 70% — the lowest in the state of Maryland. The graduation rate in 2024 was 70% — the lowest in the state of Maryland. The math proficiency rate in Baltimore City in 2017 was 11%. In 2024, it was 10%. Attendance rates are down. Chronic absenteeism is up. The average SAT score is down. The school system is noticeably worse now than it was in 2017, with $400 million additional dollars going into it.

I’m at the point now where there are no mic drop moments. I can’t even get the mayor of this city to say that something’s wrong. It’s been the same leadership since 2016. Nothing’s changing as far as student outcomes.

The one thing is the kids are held to a higher standard and they’re disciplined.

QM: In the years of your reporting on education, were there some patterns or habits you saw that seem to contribute to quality outcomes for students?

PAPST: As you read in the book, I do take readers to schools that are successful. They’re pulling kids from the same impoverished neighborhoods, getting the same per-pupil spending, the same amount of funding that any other school is getting — and they are seeing great success.

Once you read the book and hear about these schools and what they’re doing, you will see very similar things happening at these different schools. The one thing is the kids are held to a higher standard and they’re disciplined.

Public education in America is lowering standards to where students are instead of trying to educate them and get them where they need to be. In Maryland, when they wanted to increase the graduation rate in 2020, they didn’t say, we’re going to better educate kids. They made it easier to graduate. They lowered the standards. So now in the state of Maryland, you do not have to pass standardized tests to receive a high school diploma. You don’t have to be proficient in math or reading to get a high school diploma.

In the schools where you’re seeing success, you’re seeing the principals and teachers saying, no, we’re going to hold you to a higher standard. I know with my kids, if I tell them to do ten jumping jacks, they’re going to do ten. If I tell them to do one, they’re going to do one. In too many public schools, they’re having kids do one. But in the high-performing schools, they’re expecting the kids to do ten. The kids will achieve the level that the adults set for them.

The school systems are no longer about prioritizing the education of kids. They’re prioritizing the funding and the hiring of adults with that funding. If you want to know what any organization is most focused on, you’ve got to look at where they’re improving. In public education, it’s about the funding and the adults — because the more adults you have hired, the more powerful your organization is, the more people that are voting, the more influence you have. And the kids are coming not as a priority.

When you see the schools that are succeeding, it’s not a complicated formula and it doesn’t cost any money. Raise the level of expectation. Expect more from your kids. Demand more from your kids. Hold them accountable when they don’t achieve that academic level, and also hold them accountable when they misbehave.

They’re prioritizing the funding and the hiring of adults with that funding.

QM: From your background in media, what does it look like to do this job well — on behalf of the people consuming the stories and data you’re sharing?

PAPST: Whenever I get questions about the media, I always start by saying this: we need to separate national media from local media. I work for Fox 45 in Baltimore. We are in no way connected to Fox News. You’ve got to separate local media from national media. I’ve never worked in national media. I can’t speak to it. But I can speak to local media.

I live in this community that I report on, and it is in my best interest to do the best job that I can, so that I can create a better living condition for myself, for my family, and for my neighbors. Our job is to inform people about what is going on so that they can vote, so that they can make the best decisions they can about their community. My job is to follow the tax dollars, see how they’re spent, and look for what kind of return on investment taxpayers are getting.

From a local news perspective, I think there are a lot of people around this country doing really good work. The problem is, it’s only people within those local communities who know about it. That’s part of why I’m trying with *Failure Factory* to get this out around the country. Even though this book focuses on Baltimore and Maryland, it impacts the entire country, because the ideas of public education that have taken root here in Maryland have certainly spread throughout all of America. I wrote this book as a warning: *Failure Factory* is telling you what’s coming your way. You should probably stop it now before it becomes fully implemented.