For more than 40 years, Americans have poured countless tax dollars into education in urban schools, yet the outcomes have been alarmingly poor. This situation is distressing for young people who graduate without the necessary skills and knowledge to secure decent jobs and contribute positively to society.
Taxpayers find themselves victimized by educational fraud, and children suffer due to the incompetence within the system.
This issue is compellingly addressed in a revealing new book by FOX45 Baltimore reporter Chris Papst, titled Failure Factory. It is based on an eight-year investigation into Baltimore schools, and in many ways, it echoes earlier critiques of systemic failures, like Lincoln Steffens’s landmark work on urban corruption in 1904.
After reading Papst’s book, it’s hard not to reconsider how we view school bureaucracies in major cities. The book provides insights into various forms of misconduct, corruption, and fraud perpetrated by school administrators and teachers’ unions to maintain their funding, even in the face of dismal results. Clearly, education ranks low on the priority list for Baltimore’s bureaucratic leaders.
Having spent a considerable part of my life engaged in educational reform and having previously published President Ronald Reagan’s report “A Nation at Risk,” I’ve repeatedly highlighted how perilous our educational failures are for society as a whole. Unfortunately, things seem to have only deteriorated over time.
In the early 1990s, I collaborated with Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and Democratic legislator Polly Williams to initiate a school choice program that has slowly permeated across the nation. Yet, many public school students in metropolitan areas are still left struggling academically, while their peers in charter and religious schools thrive.
I’ve often questioned, both financially and personally, how such horrendous results could occur in urban education. It puzzled me why educators and union leaders would tolerate the appalling outcomes impacting millions of children—most of whom are from low-income and minority backgrounds—without taking measures to improve the situation. Reading “Failure Factory” helped clarify the depth of corruption involved; Papst has done a significant service by exposing this troubling record of failure.
In Baltimore, schools planned to spend $1.7 billion in 2024, increasing from $1.3 billion in 2017, yet only 10% of students exhibited proficiency in mathematics that year. To give some context, just 11% of students met math proficiency standards in 2017. Student enrollment has also dropped, from 82,354 in 2017 to 75,811 in 2024, meaning taxpayers spent $400 million annually on just 6,543 students.
It seems local reformers are not genuinely interested in change, as the unions benefiting from the educational status quo hold considerable influence. The vast majority of the administrative staff—730 individuals—and most teachers—4,930—appear more focused on defending their positions than on enhancing educational outcomes.
Papst reported troubling attendance issues, noting that there were 6,126 “ghost students” registered in Maryland in 2019. These students, who were accounted for but essentially absent, cost taxpayers $15,000 each that year, leading to a total of $92.9 million wasted on students not even present in classrooms.
In other sectors like healthcare or welfare, such situations would be labeled as fraud. Yet, in education, particularly in major cities, we continue to witness a pattern of waste, incompetence, and failure.
Through his research, Papst reveals that the focus of Baltimore’s education bureaucracy appears to be on financial gain. The CEO of Baltimore City Schools draws nearly $500,000 a year while overseeing a system that is, frankly, on the verge of collapse.
Papst’s thorough investigation raises red flags that can be applied to urban educational systems across the country. Sadly, many cities display similar failures. We owe it to children, taxpayers, and the nation to uncover, expose, and rectify these issues.
