We often think of Virginia resident Mona Shaw when faced with an intractable and indifferent bureaucracy.
In her 75th year on this planet Mona suffered a botched cable and phone installation at her home.
Since she could not call her cable company to complain, she visited their office in Manassas, Virginia.
Told to wait outside in the heat, she did so for two hours until a staffer finally sauntered outside and told her the "manager" she needed to see had left for the day.
When Mona returned the next morning, she brought her hammer and proceeded to get the attention of the entire customer "service" staff as she smashed keyboards, monitors, and other assorted front office equipment.
Mona struck a blow for beleaguered consumers everywhere.
Reading about Baltimore government schools brought Mona to mind this week.
Jonathan Turley has been covering that beat and reports, "forty percent of Baltimore’s schools lack a single student who has achieved grade-level proficiency in math. . . . The crisis continues with the new report that looked at 32 high schools administering the standardized test and found that 13 produced no students who proved proficient in math.
"Three-fourths of the Baltimore students taking the test were given the lowest possible score of one out of four. At the five "elite" high schools, only 11.4 % of students were math proficient."
Converting percentages into numbers, that result means out of 809 students tested at ‘elite’ schools only 92 tested as proficient.
Before you jump to conclusions about racial "equity" and lack of resources, let us explain.
Baltimore government (public) schools are 52% white and the administration spends $21,848 per student each year.
And if you count the federal "emergency relief funds" it’s a total of $32,116 per student this year alone.
Compare that to the University of Maryland’s in-state tuition of $10,955 a semester.
Jason Rodriguez, of the Baltimore nonprofit: People Empowered by the Struggle, told the New York Post, "This is educational homicide." But that's too narrow.
This complete educational failure is career and future homicide.
These kids are behind and as long as they stay in these schools they will continue to fall farther behind.
Rodriguez added, "I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue."
And here he’s correct again. And this year’s results are part of a continuing failure on the part of these government schools. The Post again, "The math scores mirror those from 2017, when zero students at 13 Baltimore high schools also tested as not proficient in the subject on the state exams, many from the same schools that had poor scores this spring."
Wouldn’t you know it, the current CEO of Baltimore schools, Sonja Santelises, was running the school system in 2017, too.
In the Baltimore school system, the only people who are listed as failures are the students. Santelises "raked in $445,000 in her total compensation last year, making her the top earning public-school district leader in Maryland despite managing its worst-performing school district."
Where is Mona Shaw when we really need her?
The response of the school system’s flack was absolutely "cable-company-could-care-less" attitude in its casual disdain for parents and its betrayal of students, "The work is underway to improve outcomes for students. But treating student achievement as an ‘if-then’ proposition does a great disservice to our community."
We assuming by "community" the flack means teachers, administrators and the CEO who are getting well paid at the expense of the students they should be serving.
Many parents and graduating high school seniors are avoiding the expense and indoctrination of leftist universities in favor of trade schools where students can learn a high-paying trade without being burdened by college debt.
That option isn’t available to Baltimore students.
They aren’t prepared for the intellectual challenges of a trade school, because many can’t read or solve routine business math problems.
Their career options have been killed by Baltimore educrats who don’t care and won’t change.
Mona Shaw took a hammer to her local cable provider office to get results.
We wonder when Baltimore parents are going to demonstrate the same type of gumption and demand results from their school system?
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.