In 2023, twenty-three Baltimore schools had zero students test proficient in math. Not one child in those buildings showed basic grade-level skills. The data comes from Baltimore City Public Schools.
Hold that fact in your mind. Do not move past it. The size of this failure tends to slide away. The people who run these schools count on that reaction.
Twenty-three schools. Zero percent proficiency.
These are not real schools. They are buildings where children sit for seven hours a day. The adults there earn salaries, benefits, and pensions. Many of the children's parents will never earn that much. The adults get paid. The children learn nothing.
This is not just Baltimore. It is Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Gary, Newark, and dozens of other cities. In each, the school system swallows resources. It produces failure with an efficiency that would be impressive if it were not a catastrophe.
The Numbers That Should End Careers
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the only ongoing national test of American students. It is called the Nation's Report Card. The 2022 results show a crisis in Black educational achievement. By any honest standard, it is an emergency inside the world's wealthiest nation.
In 2023, twenty-three Baltimore schools recorded zero percent math proficiency — not a single student tested proficient.
Nationally, only 15% of Black eighth graders scored proficient or above in reading. Only 11% scored proficient in math. These are not strange one-year numbers. They have been roughly stable for two decades.
In some urban districts, the numbers are even worse.
- Detroit — 4% of eighth graders proficient in math
- Cleveland — 5% proficient
- Milwaukee — 7% proficient
To be clear, "not proficient" does not mean a B instead of an A. It means the student cannot show basic skills for their grade.
- An eighth grader not proficient in reading cannot reliably understand a newspaper article.
- An eighth grader not proficient in math cannot do the basic work needed for college or skilled jobs.
- These children are moved through a system that hands out empty diplomas. It closes off their futures before adulthood.
The adults responsible for this will retire with full pensions. This includes administrators, school boards, union officials, and politicians.
The Proof That It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
If this failure were unavoidable, we could call the problem unsolvable. It is not. We know because other schools in the same neighborhoods serve the same children. They produce world-class results. These schools wipe out every excuse.
Success Academy is a charter school network in New York City. It runs 47 schools serving about 20,000 students. Most are Black and Latino. Most qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In 2023, 85% of Success Academy students passed the state math exam. Statewide, only 38% passed. In English, 68% were proficient, compared to 47% statewide.
These schools do not merely close the achievement gap. They destroy it. Success Academy students in Harlem outperform students in Scarsdale. Scarsdale is one of the wealthiest districts in New York State.
Success Academy vs. New York State (2023)
Success Academy & NY State Education Department, 2023
Same children. Same zip codes. Same profile that produces single-digit proficiency in traditional public schools across the street. The only thing that changed is the institution. This includes the curriculum, expectations, school culture, and teacher accountability.
KIPP runs 280 schools serving over 100,000 students nationally. Most are Black and Latino. A long-term study found 45% of KIPP alumni earned a four-year college degree. The national average is 34%. For low-income students, it is about 11%.
KIPP is not producing miracles. It is producing competence, again and again, at scale. It does this in the exact communities where the traditional system produces failure.
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1. KIPP Public Charter Schools (21 states and D.C.). KIPP runs more than 270 tuition-free public charter schools. They serve mostly low-income Black and Latino students. The model has longer school days, tough academics, and college prep. A study by Mathematica found KIPP students gained nearly an extra year in math. It found two-thirds of a year in reading. About 48% of KIPP NYC alumni graduated college. For low-income peers nationally, the rate is 11%.
2. Harlem Children’s Zone (Central Harlem, NYC). This cradle-to-career pipeline covers more than 100 blocks in Harlem. It includes parenting workshops, charter schools, health programs, and a College Success Office. Nearly 100% of its seniors were accepted to college. Over 1,800 scholars graduated college. Researchers found the program closed the Black-white math achievement gap completely. President Obama modeled a $210 million federal grant on this approach.
3. Mississippi Literacy Reform (Statewide, Mississippi). Mississippi overhauled reading instruction statewide. It adopted science-of-reading methods. It placed literacy coaches in every school. It added a third-grade reading gate. It strengthened teacher licensing. The result was a dramatic turnaround. Mississippi rose from 49th in national reading scores to 21st by 2022. It rose to 9th by 2024. This gain equals about one full year of learning. The entire reform costs about $15 million per year.
4. Sobral/Ceará Literacy Reform (Sobral, Brazil). This is one of Brazil's poorest regions. The city of Sobral rebuilt its schools around structured literacy. It used frequent testing and merit-based principal selection. It gave performance bonuses. In 2000, 48% of local children could not read. By 2003, more than 91% could. Sobral rose to number one on Brazil's national education quality index by 2017. Its public schools now outperform private schools in São Paulo. This happened on below-median per-pupil spending.
5. Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (Nationwide, India). Pratham groups children by what they actually know, not by age. It runs targeted 30-to-50-day learning camps on basic reading and math. Among 346,000 children in camps, reading ability jumped from 19% to 79%. Six randomized trials confirmed the results. Pratham has reached 76 million students through government partnerships. Experts rank it among the most cost-effective education interventions worldwide.
The Bottom Line
The numbers tell a story that no union press release can override.
- 0% — Math proficiency in 23 Baltimore schools.
- 4% — Black eighth-grade math proficiency in Detroit.
- 85% — Math proficiency at Success Academy, same zip codes as failing schools.
- 45% — KIPP alumni college graduation rate vs. 11% for low-income peers nationally.
- $400M+ — Union political contributions since 2004, 94% to the party that blocks school choice.
- 50,000+ — Students on charter school waiting lists in New York City alone.
The question is not whether Black children can learn. Dunbar answered that a century ago. Success Academy answers it every year. KIPP answers it across 280 schools.
The question is why we tolerate a system that fails completely and continuously. It fails to educate Black children. The political coalition that claims to fight for Black advancement protects the institutions most responsible for this failure.
This is not conservatism. This is not progressivism. This is arithmetic. Every year spent defending the system is another year of children who cannot read. They are warehoused, processed, and released into an economy that has no use for them.
The unions have made that failure permanent. Permanence is profitable. The children are the cost.