SW News: An American parent has criticized the public education system in Baltimore after discovering that students of 23 schools in the city do not have basic math skills.

After analyzing the data, Project Baltimore found that there are a staggering number of schools in Baltimore City where not a single student is doing math at grade level. The state examinations are reportedly taken by every school district in Maryland, and Baltimore City wasn't the only one to have unsatisfactory scores.

After learning of the horrifying discovery via the media and having a first-grader enrolled in the city's public school system, Davida Allen asked lawmakers to take action. Allen said she and her husband discovered the weak math proficiency after watching a television show, following Democrat Gov. Wes Moore's declaration earlier this month that education would be a top priority for his administration.

Moore had declared on February 1 that the state must carefully employ its assets and resources to maximize its potential, and that education was an excellent beginning. He continued, "Maryland's public schools must be among the greatest in the country, and we can no longer treat them as two distinct goals because they are interdependent."

A Republican senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott, slammed Baltimore's leadership for failing children and endangering the prospects of young people. Poor leadership in our schools, he said, "diminishes their chances of a better future."

Additionally, Scott was in favor of school choice, which lets kids use money that is often allocated for public schools to attend the school of their choosing. "School choice increases pupils' access to a top-notch education, the foundation of America's promise."

Johns Hopkins’ economics professor Steve Hanke summed up Baltimore's educational shortcomings by saying, "A DISMAL FUTURE = PUBLIC SCHOOL FAILURE + UNPREPARED STUDENTS."

The Maryland State Department of Education released the results of the state MCAP (Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program) test for 2022 and made them available to the public. The poorest arithmetic scores in Maryland are from the city of Baltimore. Less than 7% of pupils in grades 3–8 achieved proficiency, meaning that 93% of them were unable to do arithmetic activities at or above their grade level.