In February of last year a local news station in Baltimore published a shocking report about the state of the city's schools.

The Maryland State Department of Education recently released the 2022 state test results known as MCAP, Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in the state. Just 7 percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93 percent could not do math at grade level...

Project Baltimore found, in 23 Baltimore City schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math. Not a single student.

Obviously if you have entire schools where not a single student can do math at grade level, you have a serious problem. If I were a parent in Baltimore, I'd want to immediately know which schools those were to make sure my child was never sent to one of those schools. 

The Maryland state Department of Education took a very different approach. Instead of trying to fix the schools, they settled for hiding the data. First the information was pulled offline and then it was reposted but the testing results for the lowest performing schools had been replaced with an asterisk. The bad news had been redacted.

State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury claimed in a letter responding to the Fox45 report that the state was required by federal guidelines to remove the data, allegedly to protect student privacy. But actually the federal guidelines don't require anything of the sort. They are guidelines which states are free to interpret. Fox45's reporter went to the state DOE to ask Superintendent Choudhury about this decision and, well...he locked himself in a room. 

 But when Project Baltimore approached Choudhury with questions, the superintendent walked to a nearby door, closing and locking it behind him.

They wound up speaking to State Board of Education President Clarence Crawford instead. He said he supported the decision to hide the data.

Project Baltimore asked Crawford if he approved of the change to how MSDE reports state test score data.

“From what I understand, yes,” Crawford said.

“You believe in giving less information to parents and taxpayers?” followed Project Baltimore’s Chris Papst.

“No, we believe in giving proper information,” Crawford replied.

Is there anything more chilling than a government official who says people should only be given the "proper information"?

The good news is that this story will apparently have a happy ending. Superintendent Choudhury eventually resigned and the state has a new superintendent who has agreed that redacting the data on failing schools makes no sense.

When Dr. Wright became the new State Superintendent, following Choudhury’s resignation, Project Baltimore asked if she would reverse the previous administration’s decision and once again make the results available to the public. At the time, Wright said she would look into it.

“I think that's just important for the public to know,” Dr. Wright said in March.

At last week’s board meeting, Wright announced her department would reverse course and unredact the results. But when Project Baltimore analyzed the 2024 data MSDE, we noticed the results for many schools were still suppressed and hidden behind asterisks. Project Baltimore questioned Dr. Wright about it at the board meeting.

A few days later, MSDE told Fox45 in an email that the department “inadvertently continued the previous practice of applying an additional suppression rule.” And a new report with unredacted results would be released later this month – so taxpayers can see how all the schools performed.

So it has taken a long time to get to this point but, hopefully, in the next few weeks the Maryland DOE will release the data. At that point, Fox 45 will once again be able to identify how many schools in Baltimore City are completely failing all of their students. That's data that Baltimore parents obviously ought to be getting.

Here's the Fox45 report about the DOE's change of course.