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A teacher who works at Patterson High School in Baltimore, Maryland, revealed data showing that 77 percent of the public high school students are reading at an elementary school level. Some students who took the iReady assessments are even reading at a kindergarten level.
iReady assessments are a screening tool used to measure student growth in various educational areas, such as reading and math. They also identify students who may need support or follow-up diagnostics.
These below-level reading scores are happening at one of the largest high schools in Baltimore. The school has a 61 percent graduation rate and a nearly $12 million budget. Nearly 55 percent of its student body are Black and 100 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged.
“Our children deserve better. They really do,” the unidentified Patterson High School teacher told Project Baltimore. “As a whole, the system has failed them.”
iReady assessments scores are not made public, but Fox45 News investigative team Project Baltimore obtained the results for all of the students tested at Patterson High School.
In the reading assessment, 628 Patterson High School students took the test. Of those, 484 or 77 percent 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. Only 12 students (or 1.9 percent) tested were reading at grade level, Fox Baltimore reported.
People spoke out on Twitter.
“Public education has been a money laundering scheme for decades,” tweeted Big Rick Digger- Zanzibar (@Zanzibar_Dallax).
“many in this country have no idea how educationally stunted so many in this nation are and nobody seems to care to fix it,” tweeted Nuance Bro (@NuanceBro).
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Despite the poor reading assessments, the teacher said the students are “pushed through” each grade. Because of this, the teacher said, “They’re not ready for the workforce. They’re not ready for further education.”
Advancing unprepared students has long been a problem in Baltimore, experts have said.
“It’s killing the lives of thousands of black kids,” Carl Stokes, a former Baltimore City councilmember and charter school operator, told Project Baltimore in April 2021.
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