Tipsheet

Shocking Data Out of Baltimore High School Shows How Many Kids Can Only Read at Elementary Level

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  February 03, 2022 8:10 AM

The majority of students at one Baltimore city high school are reading at an elementary level, iReady assessments showed. 

Typically the results are never made public but one teacher came forward to Project Baltimore with the scores to show how bad the educational crisis is at Patterson High School, which has a 61 percent graduation rate. 

Some high school kids are doing so poorly they’re testing at a Kindergarten level, the results show. 

In reading, 628 Patterson High School students took the test. Out of those students, 484 of them, or 77%, tested at an elementary school reading level. That includes 71 high school students who were reading at a kindergarten level and 88 students reading at a first-grade level. Another 45 are reading at a second-grade level. Just 12 students tested at Patterson High School, were reading at grade level, which comes out to just 1.9%. (Fox 45 News)

According to the teacher, students are being “pushed through” the system regardless of whether they’re ready.

Baltimore City Schools has a "one fail" policy, which states, “students cannot be retained a second time prior to ninth grade.” That means students go to the next grade no matter how little work is completed. North Avenue has pointed to studies showing students learn better with grade-level peers saying, “multiple retentions should be a last resort for students.” (Fox 45 News)

Last year, Fox 45 News reported on a student at a different Baltimore area high school who passed only three classes during his four years yet "ranks near the top half of his class with a 0.13 grade point average."

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“It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to see a child that, when you talk to them outside of the classroom setting, of what are your dreams? And they have these amazing dreams and hopes for the future. But then you realize that with the skills that they have, with the level that they're at, they're going to have to work a thousand times harder to achieve,” the teacher told Project Baltimore, reports Fox 45 News. “Our children need a future.”