Baltimore City Public Schools spend $1.7 billion a year to educate students.
Yet only 10% are proficient in math.

That statistic isn’t a one-year fluke — and it isn’t the result of underfunding.

In this segment of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren speak with Chris Pabst, a national Emmy–winning investigative reporter with Fox 45 Baltimore and author of the new book Failure Factory. What emerges is a data-driven indictment of a public school system that has steadily increased spending while student outcomes have stagnated — or worsened.

Eight Years of Reporting, One Disturbing Pattern

Chris Pabst didn’t stumble onto this story. He spent eight years tracking Baltimore City Schools — following the money, the enrollment shifts, and the academic results.

Between 2017 and 2024:

  • Annual funding increased from $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion

  • That’s a $400 million increase, roughly 30% more

  • Enrollment fell by 6,500 students

  • Graduation rates remained flat at 70%

  • Math proficiency dropped from 11% to 10%

More funding. Fewer students. Worse outcomes.

A System Built for Spending, Not Students

According to Pabst, the problem isn’t a lack of resources — it’s how the system is structured.

Over time, Baltimore City Schools have increasingly prioritized:

  • Securing and expanding funding

  • Hiring and retaining adults

  • Growing administrative layers

Meanwhile, student achievement — particularly in core subjects like math — has been treated as secondary. The result is a system that rewards growth in budgets rather than growth in learning.

Pabst notes that this model doesn’t stay contained. What happens in large urban districts often spreads to surrounding school systems — and increasingly shapes national education policy.

Fewer Students, Higher Costs, Declining Results

The math becomes even more troubling when enrollment is factored in.

Baltimore schools now educate roughly 75,000 students, down from 82,000 just eight years ago. That means significantly more money is being spent per student, even as outcomes decline.

As the hosts point out, current funding levels are so high that districts could theoretically afford:

  • Full-time math tutors

  • Small-group remediation

  • Targeted academic interventions

Yet those results are nowhere to be found.

“The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time”

Pabst doesn’t frame this as a partisan issue — he frames it as a moral one.

When students — disproportionately low-income and minority children — are denied basic academic skills despite historic levels of funding, the consequences follow them for life. Limited job opportunities, reduced economic mobility, and fewer choices become the norm.

That’s why Pabst calls urban public education the civil rights issue of today — not as rhetoric, but as a conclusion drawn from years of evidence.

Why Failure Factory Matters

Failure Factory walks readers year by year through Baltimore’s education system using budgets, enrollment figures, performance data, and internal records. It doesn’t rely on anecdotes or ideology — it lets the numbers speak.

And what they say is clear: accountability has been replaced by excuses, and students are paying the price.

Transcript

Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest up today, Chris Pabst, is a national Emmy winning investigative reporter with Fox 45 in Baltimore. For the past eight years, he’s investigated why Baltimore schools spend $1.7 billion each year, yet only have 10 % of their students proficient in math. He’s also the author of a new book, Failure Factory, how Baltimore city public schools deprive taxpayers and students of a future. Christopher Pabst, welcome to the program.

**Chris Pabst: **Chuck, Sam thank you for having me on I appreciate it

**Chuck Warren: **By the way, Chris, when you were young with that voice of yours, did people say you need to go into the news business? I mean, did they encourage you?

Chris Pabst: Actually no, I never did. I never heard that one.

Chuck Warren: You have that great reporter voice, you know? It’s wonderful. So look, we’re fascinated on education, fascinated with your book. And by the way, folks, we’re gonna give away two books we’ll be posting this interview on. you engage or DM us, we’ll send the first two people Chris’s book, The Failure Factory.

It’s very rare for a news organization to give somebody like you carte blanche to go investigate this for eight years specifically public education is that a fair assessment?

Chris Pabst: Very fair assessment. So I’m very fortunate to work for the company that I work for. So I work for Fox 45 News in Baltimore, but our parent company is a company called Sinclair. And we’re based in Maryland. And what we have seen over many, many years is that Baltimore City Schools and what’s happening in Baltimore City Schools as far as the lack of education and the educational mindset is very toxic has leaked out into the other surrounding school systems around Baltimore city.

And it’s really something that we’re seeing is taking root throughout the entire country, is this idea that public education is no longer prioritizing the educational aspect of what they’re supposed to do. They’re largely prioritizing the acquisition of funding and then the usage of that funding to hire adults.

And we can go over some of the data here, but what I do in Failure Factory is that I take all the data over an eight year period. I’ve been investigating this, as you said, for eight years. And I take readers through those eight years and I show you where the money is going, where it’s not going. And most importantly, the lack of student achievement that is coming out of that. So between 20...

2017 and 2024 those eight school years Baltimore city schools has increased its funding by $400 million. It’s up 30% from 1.3 billion to 1.7 billion in 2024. The graduation rate guys is identical 70% in 2017 70% in 2024 math proficiencies have gotten worse.

They were 11%, 11% of the students in 2017 were proficient in math. In 2024 with 400 million additional dollars a year going into the school system. Math proficiencies went down to 10%. I believe that this is the civil rights issue of today.

Chuck Warren: 100%

Chris Pabst: Public Education specifically in urban schools is the civil rights issue of today. That’s why I wrote.

Chuck Warren: Chris, what makes this number, this 300 million number, worse? Is the fact that since the last eight years, enrollment in Baltimore public schools has fallen six percent. Six percent. So they have less students.

Sam Stone: What’s the total enrollment?

Chris Pabst: So the enrollment is down 6,500 students between, it’s actually more than 6%. It’s 6,500 students between 2017 and 2024. So you’re looking at about 82,000 students in 2017. It’s down to 75,000 students. So when you’re looking at that 400 million additional dollars, it’s to educate far fewer students and they still have worsening outcomes.

Chuck Warren: You could like, you could like literally put a full-time math tutor in every classroom and assign them five to ten kids.

Sam Stone: You’re almost $23,000 per kid in direct funding.

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