(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In the name of making so-called just and equitable standards, the Baltimore Public School System is failing to teach elementary literacy to its students, Fox News Baltimore reported.
Recent reports have indicated that the problem has been present for a long time, and that it is only getting worse.
According to Baltimore resident, 41-year-old Debora Prestileo, she still struggles to read after graduating from a Baltimore high school in 1999. Prestileo said she is embarrassed by her lack of education.
“It’s embarrassing sometimes,” she told Project Baltimore. “Going into stores, like if I go into Walmart, and I’ve got to ask for help. Sometimes people laugh at me.”
She also said that she struggles to pay bills and organize her life because of the difficulties she has reading and writing.
“My life is hard. When you can’t read your mail, you can’t read nothing, it’s hard,” she said.
When asked about her schooling experience, Prestileo commented on the low quality of instruction she received, which was clearly intended to push her through the system rather than teach her to read and write.
“Some teachers would give me, like if we’re taking a test, they would give me the paper, so I can write the answers down, so I wouldn’t fail the class. And I’m like, ‘well, that’s not teaching me, that’s just helping me cheat,’” Prestileo said.
Like any “industry” that is subject to arbitrary standards, public education has become about meeting statistical goals and not doing the job well.
As a result, kids in Baltimore are being sent through without an education.
“They passed me. They just passed me along to get me out of the school,” she continued. “They knew I didn’t know how to read. They knew I didn’t know how to do a lot of stuff. But they didn’t care.”
“To this day, I still get laughed at and talked about, ‘oh this person don’t know how to read,’ Prestileo concluded.