President Trump calls out Baltimore on education: 'Zero students who can do basic mathematics'

Michelle Deal-Zimmerman, Baltimore Sun on Mar 20, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

President Donald Trump held a ceremony at the White House Thursday as he signed an executive order that would dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

Trump, explaining the rationale for his action, rattled off statistics about education failures in America.

"After 45 years, the United States spends more money by far on education than any other country,” Trump said, adding that the funding per pupil was especially high considering what the president considers to be poor results.

He said America ranks near the bottom of the list in terms success, specifically in reading and math skills. “Students perform worse today than when the department opened” in 1979, Trump said, as he gave an example of an education failure some 40 miles north of the White House.

“In Baltimore, 40% of the high schools have zero students who can do basic mathematics. Not even the very simplest of mathematics — I said, ‘Give me your definition of basic.’ And, they’re talking about like adding a few numbers together,” Trump said.

No other cities were specifically called out for failing schools in the president’s speech in which he said education would be returned to states at a cost that is “half” and “many times better.”

In September 2023, FOX45’s Project Baltimore reported that it had obtained unredacted state test results for every school in Baltimore City through a source within the school system. Those results showed that 40% of city high schools, where the state exam was given, did not have any students score proficient in math in tests that were taken earlier that year.

According to Project Baltimore, there were 13 Baltimore City high schools where not one student who took the state math test scored proficient in math.

More recently, students in Baltimore City showed small improvements in math and reading over the past two years, but are still lagging behind the national average, according to results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, released in January.

In December, the Maryland Report Card found Baltimore City schools improving the number of schools that scored a three-star grade or above on the state’s school rating system of one to five stars, according to 2023-24 data.

_____