Investigative journalist Christopher Papst joins the show to discuss the reporting behind Project Baltimore and the troubling questions surrounding Baltimore’s public school system.
For years, Papst has investigated how billions of taxpayer dollars flow into schools based largely on enrollment numbers while student performance struggles to keep pace. Through whistleblower testimony, public records, and years of reporting, the investigation has raised serious questions about manipulated metrics, grade inflation, attendance reporting, and how accountability works inside large education systems.
Papst also discusses the stories behind his book Failure Factory, including the teachers, students, and insiders who stepped forward to reveal what they saw inside the system.
In this conversation we discuss:
• The investigation behind Project Baltimore
• How school funding formulas work and why enrollment matters
• Whistleblowers who helped expose internal problems
• Pressure and threats faced during investigative reporting
• Whether oversight should come from local, state, or federal levels
• What parents across America should understand about school data
This was one of the most eye-opening interviews we’ve had on the show.
If you enjoy conversations that question the official narrative and bring real reporting to the table, make sure to follow the show and leave a 5-star rating!
It helps more listeners discover the podcast and keeps conversations like this going.
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They circle the wagons around themselves and they try to hide
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what's going on in the school system from parents and
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taxpayers, and in many cases they're very good at it.
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We were willing to take that gamble because we were very
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confident that the school system was changing massive amounts of
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grades. They were graduating kids who
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could not read because we had teachers that were telling us
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that Baltimore City Schools was one of the most funded but one
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of the lowest performing large school systems in America.
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I went from being called a racist, hating black people and
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trying to destroy the city to getting 2N double ACP awards for
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the work that we have done in the city and the national
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chapter of the N double ACP is it.
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Welcome to Stay in the Fray podcast.
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I'm your host, Ryan. This is where headlines get hit
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hard, hypocracy gets shredded, and the absurd are laughed at.
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If you want comfort, this isn't your place.
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If you want blunt and unfiltered, I'm your guy.
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Join me in the Fray, all you. Had to do is just listen up.
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Thanks for reaching out. This is something I'm trying to
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do more of, which is to talk with people who know a hell of a
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lot more than I do that have experienced things that have
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taken it upon themselves to to to find what we're going to talk
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about today instead of me just rambling to the camera and
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yelling and being frustrated by things like this.
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I can't wait to hear from you just really fast.
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This is the boring part for people.
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But just to tell them what you do.
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You are the lead investigative reporter for what's called
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Project Baltimore, FOX 45 up there in Baltimore.
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And this is a look into the Maryland's public education
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system. What I'm seeing fraud,
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deception, lies, uninformed parents, which is one of the
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biggest things for me that has me all rattled.
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And until you and I really talked or emailed, I mean, I was
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completely unaware. And it's kind of like Nick
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Shirley. And and that's how we kind of
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connected is that I did a show about Nick Shirley and you
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notice that and, and, and I'm just baffled.
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So I want to let you just kind of go.
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You've been doing similar things to what kind of Nick did, but in
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a whole different light. So just jump in Project
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Baltimore. What was something that
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motivated you to do this? What did you see that made you
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start this? So First off, thank you so much
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for having me. I I really appreciate it, Chris
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and and I think it. So let me just back up a second.
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So what, what Project Baltimore is, is we, we're, we're a team
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of five journalists and there's 2 photographer editors, 2
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producers and myself as a reporter.
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And we focus on one topic. And that one topic that we focus
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on is public education. And the reason that we're
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focusing on public education, and we've been doing this since
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January of 2017, we're doing it now for more than nine years, is
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that we could see back in January of 2019 that Baltimore
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City Schools was one of the most funded, but one of the lowest
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performing large school systems in America.
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And I was an investigative reporter in Washington, DC, and
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I was working for the ABC News affiliate when I got this call
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from my parent company, which is Sinclair Broadcast Group.
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And they said, listen, do you want to run this thing called
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Project Baltimore? And here's what we want.
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We want to answer the questions how and why?
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How has Baltimore City become the most funded, but one of the
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lowest performing large school systems in the country?
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And why is this happening? Why is it accepted?
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Why is it allowed to happen? So nine years later, I wrote a
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book called A Failure Factory, How Baltimore City Public
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Schools Deprive tax payers and students of a future.
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And I wrote the book because after doing this for 9 years, I
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think that we have answered the questions how and why is this
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happening and why this is valuable for the entire country
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is because we are seeing the same educational philosophies
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that have taken root in Baltimore spread across all of
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America. And, and, and we've been seeing
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it for years where taxpayers are putting massive amounts of money
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into public education, but the student academic outcomes are
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not improving, staying stagnant, going down.
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And the how and the why in Baltimore is the same how and
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the why for the rest of the country.
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And so that's why I wrote this book because I'm, I'm trying to
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educate people. I'm trying to let people know
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what's going on because a a society cannot thrive unless the
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public education system is properly educating its students.
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100% And I think as a parent, that's, I mean, when, when when
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I started looking into you and your work, what you've been
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doing the book. Admittedly, I've I've got it on
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order. I've I've looked into it, I've
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been in the middle of a move, as we've mentioned.
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So I've got stuffed boxes, books everywhere.
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So, but, but from what I have looked into with the book in
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your work, I mean, it's, it's one of the biggest things is
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what do parents need to know? How do they not know this?
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There's so much to talk about. And I'm glad you jumped to the
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books. I was going to get there.
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Do you want to mention, I'll put links up all over the place, but
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do you want to just go right off the bat and just go ahead and
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mention where you where you can get it?
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I mean, I'm assuming it's just everywhere.
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Amazon, all the places. Yeah, Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
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Goodreads, anywhere books are sold.
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If your local bookstore isn't carrying it, they can.
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Start. Yeah, I have a website,
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chrispaps.com, CHRISPAPST and all my social media accounts,
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which are just basically Chris Babst.
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And, you know, I, I hope that people, you know, do pick up a
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copy of the book after we, you know, we do this show because I,
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I want people to know what's going on and, and I want them to
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be frustrated and I want them to be angry because we need to
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improve this situation. We cannot continue to dump
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massive amounts of taxpayer dollars in the public education
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and not get a return on that investment.
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The first part is happening, taxpayers.
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If you're listening, you're doing your part.
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You are putting the money in the public education occasion, but
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the public schools are not holding up their end of the
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bargain. I like the way the way you said
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that. I mean, I'm literally looking at
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the stuff that's covered in the books and you're talking about
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the attendance fraud, inflated grades.
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I mean the leadership failures all across the board.
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It just to cover it up. I mean, I guess my my first
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question to you and all of this is, is the intentional cover up
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the intentional protection of of what's happening there?
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Is there a was there a flag something that you first that
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first trying to trigger you going yeah, this isn't just this
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isn't a mistake. This is something that's that
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people are actually attempting to do was your moment.
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Go ahead. So we have, you know, we have
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seen over 9 years that the nine years failure factory covers
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that the school systems and, and it's not just Baltimore.
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So what I said that in 2017 we started doing Baltimore City and
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we did and we're still doing that today.
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But we really have branched out to the, the counties around
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Baltimore and, and all of Maryland.
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And what we have seen is that these school systems exist to
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protect themselves. They, they circle the wagons
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around themselves and they try to hide what's going on in the
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school system from parents and taxpayers.
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And in many cases they're very good at it.
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And, and I'll give you an example.
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So in, in January of 2017, I got here and I, I didn't know
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anybody. I'd never been to Baltimore,
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didn't live in Baltimore. And I did what investigative
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journalists do. And I started looking at data.
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So there's 165 schools in Baltimore City.
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And I pulled the state test scores for all of those schools
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and began analyzing them. And what I found was there were
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six schools in Baltimore City that did not have any students
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proficient in any subject. Hundreds of kids, 066 entire
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schools, zero students in those six schools.
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So we do this story. It was Project Baltimore's first
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big viral story. And it blows up, absolutely
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blows up, as it should. That that's an alarming
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headline. And I was.
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Going to say. After the the story breaks, I
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get teachers from Baltimore City that start reaching out out to
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me and they're like, yeah, this is true.
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You know, we're, we're graduating kids that can't read.
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And I'm like, what do you, what do you mean?
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And they're like, yeah, these kids can't do math or reading,
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but they're still graduating. And I'm like, well, how, how are
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they graduating? And the teachers are saying that
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an administrator will go into their grade book, change a
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failing grade to passing to get these kids to their senior year
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and get them high school diplomas.
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So when we started reporting this and, and in failure
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Factory, I interview the teachers.
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Their, their testimonies are in the book.
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You can hear it from them. And I started getting more and
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more of these teachers reaching out to me and we started
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thinking, OK, this is probably a pretty big problem.
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So in November of 2017, I filed a public records request with
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Baltimore City Public Schools, and I requested emails and
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documents related to grade changing, internal
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investigations, things like that.
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School system writes back, they don't give us anything.
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They say basically go away. So the next month, December of
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2017, we sued Baltimore City Public Schools for violating
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Maryland's Public Information Act.
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In February of 2019, it goes to court.
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I testified for a few hours in front of the Circuit Court judge
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and then in March of 2019 the judge issues her ruling.
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This is where I answer your question, but I had I had to get
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here. No, no, this is fascinating to
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me. No, no, keep going.
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Now the judge issues her ruling and the judge says that
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Baltimore City schools, and these are her words, willfully
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and knowingly violated the law by not handing over the
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documents. What the judge said A Baltimore
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City judge said that the school system knew it was breaking the
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law by not handing over the documents, but they did it
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anyway. And in her words, they did it to
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hide potential wrongdoing, of course.
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So the judge really laid the smack down on Baltimore City
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Schools and she forced the school system to hand over
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everything that we originally requested a year and a half
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prior. And she made the school system
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pay $200 of our legal fees. She made them pay our entire
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legal fees. So what we had here was a
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situation where the school system knew they were going to
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lose this case. They knew it.
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There is no way that they weren't going to lose, and they
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chose to go forward with it anyway, costing taxpayers not
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just $200 we get paid, but all the money the school system
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had to pay their attorneys to go to court.
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OK, So this cost taxpayers a lot of money that could have hired a
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lot of teachers. And when we got the documents,
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what we got was 8000 emails, many of which were teachers that
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were telling their administrators quit going into
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my rule book and changing my grades.
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This student did not pass my class.
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How did this student graduate from my class and go to the next
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grade? How did they get a diploma?
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And really what that moment showed us is the lengths to
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which public schools will go to conceal what is actually
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happening inside of public schools.
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And the only reason we know this is because of FOX 45 being
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willing to sue the school system because we were willing to call
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their bluff and say, no, you have these documents, we know
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you have them. You have to hand them over.
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And if you don't, we're going to sue you, and a judge is going to
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force you to hand them over. Is that unusual you think for a,
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you know, network to to be involved with something like
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this or is that, is that something that you're seeing
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more and more of it's? Rare because it's expensive.
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Well, right. Sure.
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And, and you're not guaranteed that if you win, you get
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attorneys fees. And no, we did.
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So this lawsuit didn't cost us anything.
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But had we not gotten those attorneys fees and had we not
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won, you know, $200 for any organization is a good amount of
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money. And we were willing to take that
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gamble because we were very confident that the school system
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was changing massive amounts of grades.
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They were graduating kids who could not read because we had
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teachers that were telling us that.
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And the emails, if you want to read the emails from those
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teachers to their administrators, they're in the
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book failure factory. If you want to see the internal
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investigations, they're they're in failure factory.
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It's all there. I put it right out there for
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everybody to see and read. I cannot wait to the I mean,
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seriously, I again, I I would have already had it done if life
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hadn't stepped in the way. But so tell me about these
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teachers, the teachers, because that was one of my questions is
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the whistle blowers, if you will.
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Everybody uses that term, people that that are helping you with
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this. I imagine you need you need that
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to pursue any of it. Is it mostly teachers or is
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there anybody else involved that kind of sees what you're seeing
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that, you know, that would come from somewhere maybe that people
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wouldn't expect well. There's a lot of people within
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the school system. So in the book I interview
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nurses, I interview administrators, I interview
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teachers, parents, students. I interviewed students who
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graduated who told me they don't think they deserve to graduate.
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And you know, a lot of it with the people within the school
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system, There's a lot of really, really good people in the school
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system and they know what's happening and they know it's not
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right, but they also have very good paying jobs.
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They have pensions, they have healthcare, they have families.
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And there's a lot of retaliation in public schools.
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And anybody listening to us right now that that works or has
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ever worked in public schools, you know that that if you come
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out, the chances of being retaliated against are very
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high. And a lot of public school
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officials don't want to take that chance.
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So they don't. But they come to me and they'll
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do an interview with me and, and they just do it anonymously.
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And what we do from our standpoint as investigative
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journalists is that we make sure that we background them
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appropriately. I get their ID's, you know, I
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get pay stubs. I make sure they are who they
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say they are. I try to find them on the
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school's websites. I do everything like that, you
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know, And then we'll interview them and they'll tell us what's
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going on. They'll tell us that their
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grades are being changed. They'll tell us that, you know,
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instances of fights and kids bringing weapons to schools are
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not getting documented because the school, the school
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superintendents don't want to make the schools look dangerous.
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So they don't document what's going on.
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This is, this is what's happening in their schools.
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Yeah, I wanted. To get to the violence, I saw
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that you, you talk about that in the book as well.
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And overall, but I mean, that's being covered.
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It just seems to me like, you know, the obvious question that
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anybody would ask, especially parents or, you know, why or why
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is this happening? Why are we letting this happen?
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And I mean, the easy answer is, is just trying to, I guess go
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through the motions or what, what, what would you give to a
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parent that says, why is this OK to so many people?
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Does that make sense? Money.
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OK. So so it is all that's that's
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what I was getting at. It's all.
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Money. It's all about the money.
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Baltimore City. Schools.
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Yeah, and you just got to file the money.
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And Baltimore City Schools has a $1.8 billion budget.
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So $1.8 billion goes into that school system.
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That's this year. Next year it's going to be 1.9
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billion because it, it keeps going up even though enrollment
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is going down and student outcomes don't improve.
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And when you have this giant organization, it's public school
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systems that have 10 employees.
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Baltimore City has about 10 thousand, 10 employees.
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Somewhere in there, you know, you have these massive school
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systems. They have a lot of power and
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they have a lot of votes and they have a lot of money and
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they have a lot of people making that money and they want to keep
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making that money. So their objective is to what we
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have seen in in reporting on this for nine years, their
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objective is to is to maintain the status quo and to maintain
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the power and structure of their organization.
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I mean, that's why this is happening.
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Now if if you want to get more granular into it or, or even
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more surface level, you can kind of go either way here.
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The the reason it's A to happen is because that's the question.
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Yeah. In a city like Baltimore, the
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elected officials are simply not holding the school system
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accountable. And they're not saying, hey,
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we're giving you a lot of extra money and we can actually go
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over the numbers if you want. I can tell you exactly how much
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money. But and and we're not seeing
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academic outcomes improve. You need to do better or you're
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going to get fired. Like that's not happening in
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this city. Give me some rough.
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Give me some numbers. Good rough.
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Numbers, yeah. Rough.
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You know, for for taxpayers, yeah.
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Sure. So Failure Factory goes from
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2017 to 2025. Those are the years that that
00:16:58
the book covers. And in 2017, Baltimore City
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Schools budget was $1.3 billion. By 2025, eight years later, the
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budget was $1.8 billion. So the budget increased by 38%
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in just eight years. Now let's talk about graduation
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rates. The graduation rate in 2017 was
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70%. The graduation rate in 2025 was
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71%. So the school system got a 38%
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increase in funding and graduation rates.
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One point math proficiencies in math proficiency in 2026.
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In today's world, if you're if you don't have good math skills,
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you're in trouble. The math proficiency rate in
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Baltimore City schools in 2017 was 11 percent. 89% of kids in
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Baltimore City schools in 2017 were not proficient in math.
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And this is the entire school system.
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Eight years later, with a 38% increase in funding, math
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proficiencies were 12% went up point.
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So you got a 38% increase in funding, you have a one point
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increase in graduation rates and you have a one point increase in
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math proficiencies. Now that is really why failure
00:18:16
Factory is important because in Maryland taxes are going up,
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fees are going up, and much of it is going to public education.
00:18:25
This state has decided that it's going to put all of its chips
00:18:28
into public education, which is fine, but what the taxpayer
00:18:32
isn't getting is a better educated child.
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Now, one more thing that to point out here.
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So people who are listening to us right now, they may have
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listened to that data and they thought to themselves, whoa,
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whoa, whoa. How do you have 71% of your kids
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graduating and 12% of your kids are proficient in math?
00:18:51
How does that happen? Well, it's very simple.
00:18:54
It happens because the school systems are less focused on
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educating kids and they're more focused on acquiring the
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funding. And the data is telling us that
00:19:04
you have a 38% increase in funding over 8 years, that
00:19:08
that's where you're putting your energy.
00:19:10
You're very good at acquiring funding.
00:19:12
Anytime they talk about funding in Annapolis, you got the, the
00:19:15
school and, and teachers and, and the union and they're all
00:19:18
down there rah rah for more money.
00:19:21
That's where they're putting their energy and they're getting
00:19:23
it. Where they're not putting their
00:19:25
energy is to educating kids because we can see the outcomes.
00:19:28
The outcomes aren't there. Is it just across the board?
00:19:30
I mean, like I said, I'm looking at all these these crazy
00:19:33
attendance and I mean all, I mean, just everything I mean, is
00:19:37
it for people like myself? And I admit to being naive to
00:19:41
the topic, obviously. I mean, this is just, I'm just
00:19:43
kind of, if I have this expression, it's just because I
00:19:46
am just fascinated that this is happening and it's just somebody
00:19:50
that's never even thought about it on my end.
00:19:52
And so is it just across the board numbers that they just
00:19:56
they're forcing so that they continue to receive the funding?
00:19:59
I mean, I know that sounds like the most basic question, but is
00:20:01
that is it as simple as that they're just skewing numbers to
00:20:04
make sure they get to what the state requires?
00:20:07
So they're skewing numbers for this purpose.
00:20:10
A school in Maryland and throughout the entire country,
00:20:14
they do not get funding to educate kids.
00:20:17
That's not a lot of people think schools get funding to educate
00:20:20
students. That is not true.
00:20:21
Schools get funding to enroll students.
00:20:26
The incentive is to enroll the student, not educate the
00:20:30
student. So once the student is enrolled,
00:20:33
the school will get the money for that kid.
00:20:35
It does not matter if that kid learns how to read.
00:20:38
It doesn't matter if that child is proficient or not proficient
00:20:42
in science or reading or math. The school's already gotten the
00:20:45
money because the child is enrolled.
00:20:48
So that is something that, as I'm doing my book tour for
00:20:51
Failure Factory, that I'm talking to a lot of people
00:20:53
about. That's something a lot of people
00:20:55
don't realize. Schools do not get money to
00:20:57
educate kids. OK.
00:20:58
If there's one thing that you take away from the book, I think
00:21:01
that's it. So we have an educational system
00:21:04
that is not incentivized to educate kids.
00:21:06
It's incentivized to enroll kids.
00:21:09
So now let's talk about your question.
00:21:11
Why would they fudge numbers? Why would they pass kids that
00:21:13
don't deserve to pass? Because if you pass the child,
00:21:16
you're more likely to stay enrolled.
00:21:19
Because you know, if you see light at the end of the tunnel,
00:21:21
if you're a kid, you see potential graduation, you're
00:21:25
more likely to stay in school. And what the schools are doing
00:21:28
and what we know they're doing because we can see it in the
00:21:30
data. I mean, you have 71% graduation
00:21:32
rates and 12% math proficiencies is they're moving the kids from
00:21:36
grade to grade, they're changing their grades, they're
00:21:38
matriculating them through the school process and they don't
00:21:41
have the skills that they need. And they're doing that because
00:21:45
the motivation is to acquire the funding.
00:21:47
And all you have to do is keep the kid enrolled.
00:21:50
And, and if you are a principal or you are a teacher and every
00:21:54
single one of your kids is proficient in math or 0% of your
00:21:59
kids are proficient in math, you get the same amount of money,
00:22:02
right? As long as they're enrolled.
00:22:03
As long as they're enrolled, that's all.
00:22:05
They feed, they feed them through the year, through the
00:22:07
grades and don't care. And like you would.
00:22:09
I can't wait to look into and I'll ask you a little bit about
00:22:12
it is the interview with the students who came out and said,
00:22:15
quite frankly, look, I don't know how I graduated.
00:22:17
I don't know how I passed. First off, it's not doing them
00:22:19
any to just feed them through. But how I mean, is it a large
00:22:23
number of students that are that are concerned about it or do you
00:22:25
think that what would, what would, what do you think the
00:22:28
actual graduation rate would be if they actually had to hold the
00:22:32
standard, hold them to the standard?
00:22:34
Sure. Well, I mean, I don't even have
00:22:35
to tell you my I can, I can tell you what is.
00:22:38
So after we won the lawsuit that we talked about where we had to
00:22:41
sue Baltimore City Schools, after we won that lawsuit, the
00:22:44
Inspector General for Education of Maryland open an
00:22:47
investigation and it came out in 2022.
00:22:50
So of of the eight years that failure factory covers five of
00:22:54
those years is is this grade changing investigation that
00:22:57
started with those six schools with no kids proficient and it
00:23:00
ended with the the inspector general's report in 2022.
00:23:03
And what he found was over a four year period, there were
00:23:06
12 and I think 41 grades that were improperly changed in
00:23:13
Baltimore City. Now, this is not B to A.
00:23:16
This is not C to B. This is F to passing.
00:23:19
This is either failing to passing grades.
00:23:22
And these kids did not do any additional work.
00:23:24
They did not hand any homework or do any more tests or anything
00:23:27
like that. Their grades were just simply
00:23:29
changed from a failing to A passing 12.
00:23:35
And what he found was as many as 10% of kids at some high schools
00:23:39
are graduating who did not earn it.
00:23:41
They were given their diplomas. They did not earn their
00:23:44
diplomas. So how many kids graduated who
00:23:47
should not have? The Inspector General for
00:23:49
education puts that number at about 10%.
00:23:52
But the Inspector General for Education in his report also
00:23:55
said his numbers are only as accurate as what the school
00:23:58
gives him. And what we've already
00:24:00
determined is that the school doesn't want to give over
00:24:03
documents. We had to sue them to get the
00:24:05
documents that that we got. Well, yeah.
00:24:08
Do you think that do you have any students that do you think
00:24:11
we're like no here? I don't I'm not I'm not
00:24:14
graduating and that demanded to. I don't want to focus too much
00:24:17
on that but I'm just curious if anybody.
00:24:19
Has it's a huge no, it's a huge question because you're.
00:24:22
Young you, I mean, you get a free pass.
00:24:25
I mean, how many people might take that?
00:24:26
So the student that we interviewed in the book, I'll
00:24:30
just tell you a little bit about him.
00:24:31
So it's a school that he was at. There are some sources I had
00:24:34
there, some teachers that said we're we're graduating these
00:24:37
kids that do not deserve to be walking across the stage.
00:24:40
And they leaked to me the transcripts of these kids.
00:24:43
And what I could see was that this one particular kid, his
00:24:46
senior year, missed 120 days of school.
00:24:49
Now there's 180 days in a school year.
00:24:53
This particular student missed 120, but on his transcript had
00:24:57
an address. So I went to his home and I
00:25:00
knocked on his door. So this was this was after he
00:25:03
had already walked across the stage.
00:25:05
He was no longer a student in Baltimore City Public Schools.
00:25:08
He was a 20 year old man with no job.
00:25:10
So I walk up and I knock on his door and he answers it.
00:25:13
And I got my cameras all around me and I tell him I'm recording
00:25:16
this. Can I ask you a few questions
00:25:17
about your time at the high school?
00:25:19
And he goes, sure. And you know, you can read the
00:25:21
entire transcript of the interview in the book, but he he
00:25:24
said to me, he's like, I, you know, I didn't do any work to
00:25:26
graduate, but I'm happy that I did now.
00:25:28
And and that's really where these kids are because I think
00:25:31
his actual quote to me was I, I just if I had the book right in
00:25:34
front of me, I would read it to you.
00:25:35
But I don't, I think his quote was I never thought that I would
00:25:38
graduate. I'm happy that I did.
00:25:40
Yeah, and I can't, I can't blame the kids.
00:25:43
Well, no, it's not the kids fault because he was that up to
00:25:46
understand that you're going to graduate no matter what you do.
00:25:51
But the other sad part of that is he's 20 years old, he's in
00:25:54
the prime of his life and he's at home at 1:00 on an afternoon
00:25:57
and has absolutely no job. And I asked him, are you going
00:25:59
to get a job? And he goes, I'm thinking about
00:26:01
it. I mean that that is the problem
00:26:04
because he was a very nice kid and he was a man.
00:26:07
He was 20. He wasn't a kid.
00:26:08
He was a very nice man and he agreed to talk to me and you
00:26:11
know, we didn't announced that we were coming.
00:26:14
We just knocked on the door and he answered it and he was
00:26:16
shocked, but he still came out and he was honest and I
00:26:19
appreciated that. That's nice, at least that that
00:26:21
he was able to say to me it helped you.
00:26:22
I mean, I want to know what kind of pushback you've gotten
00:26:27
because my understanding, and I mean, I can't, I can only
00:26:31
imagine is that there's some people not so happy about what
00:26:34
you do and what you've done. Have you had any kind of like
00:26:38
threads? I mean, obviously if you have
00:26:40
some big stories, then then I'd love to know them.
00:26:42
But what, what kind of pushback do you do you get and, and where
00:26:45
is it coming from? And is it ever kind of made you
00:26:47
go? Maybe we need to do something a
00:26:49
different way? Sure, when we started Project
00:26:52
Baltimore in January of 2017 and, and I don't know exactly
00:26:56
how many people are watching this podcast or listening to it,
00:26:58
but I'm, I'm a white guy and I go into this city that is is is
00:27:03
very of the very black city and the school system is 93%
00:27:08
minority students 93%. So here comes this white guy
00:27:12
coming into the city and he starts reporting on all these
00:27:15
things and suing the school system and exposing how they got
00:27:18
all these schools with no kids proficient in anything and, and
00:27:22
talking about how grades are being changed and kids are
00:27:24
graduating that don't deserve it.
00:27:26
And in the beginning, we got a significant amount of pushback.
00:27:29
And in the failure factory, I, I I put the voicemails and emails
00:27:33
in there for people to. Read perfect.
00:27:35
And and you can see. Them you laid it out nicely.
00:27:37
The hatred that I got, the names that I was being called, being
00:27:41
called racist and all these other.
00:27:42
Things, of course. The all the buzzwords, yeah.
00:27:45
And I knew that going into it. I knew that was going to happen.
00:27:47
But at the same time, I also felt that this is a valuable
00:27:51
mission and what we're doing is important.
00:27:54
So we stuck with it and we kept going.
00:27:56
And there was a couple times, There were three times where the
00:28:00
threats got a little bit too much and we had to call the
00:28:02
police and the police had to go find somebody and say, hey, are
00:28:05
you really serious about this? That type of thing.
00:28:07
We did that three times. And those I think ended in about
00:28:10
20-19, maybe 2020. And then I'll say this, that
00:28:14
after about four years, all of that stuff stopped.
00:28:18
And I think what happened was we simply earned the trust and
00:28:21
respect of the community. And we said, we said to the
00:28:24
community, listen, we're going to come in and we're going to do
00:28:27
hard hitting journalism. And it's going to be real, but
00:28:30
it's going to be honest and it's going to be fair.
00:28:32
And in the beginning it was a shock because nobody was used to
00:28:35
seeing it. But after four or five years,
00:28:38
people started to say, you know what?
00:28:40
He, I think this guy does have the best interests at heart and
00:28:43
he really is exposing some pretty important things.
00:28:46
And our kids are aren't getting the education that they need and
00:28:50
all that stuff stopped man, all that.
00:28:52
I haven't had to deal with that stuff for a long time.
00:28:54
So much in fact, that in 2023, the Maryland State Chapter N
00:28:59
Double ACP gave me its Vanguard Award for the work that is in
00:29:04
Failure Factory. And then in 2025, Baltimore
00:29:08
County chapter of the N Double ACP gave me their Excellence in
00:29:12
Education award for the work that is in Failure Factory.
00:29:16
So I mean, think about that transcript.
00:29:17
What happened there? So I went from being called a
00:29:20
racist, hating black people and trying to destroy the city to
00:29:25
getting 2N double ACP awards for the work that we have done in
00:29:29
the city. And the national chapter of the
00:29:33
N double ACP is in Baltimore. Yeah.
00:29:36
So I mean from my perspective. Randallstown, I was looking at,
00:29:39
I was looking at your credentials here, my man.
00:29:41
Yeah. So we're on the same.
00:29:43
We're on the same page. I was just about to ask you when
00:29:46
you when you brought that up and it's amazing to me and it's so
00:29:49
it's so refreshing to hear that you that they're recognizing you
00:29:52
for this because again. It was, yeah, it was really an
00:29:54
honor. Yeah.
00:29:55
The Randallstown chapter is the Baltimore County one.
00:29:58
And then the state chapter, NAACP was a 20231.
00:30:02
And it was, it was a great honor.
00:30:04
And it, it really just lets us know that, you know, even though
00:30:06
times were tough for a while, that that we think that we're
00:30:09
doing the right thing and we're trying to help.
00:30:11
And, and I think that most people are seeing that, but not
00:30:15
the people that we're reporting on.
00:30:17
Right. Yeah, exactly.
00:30:20
Yeah. I, I do, I've done a lot of
00:30:22
content about inner city education, lack of fathers, how,
00:30:27
how do we help the crime statistics, things like that.
00:30:30
I'm called, I'm called everything too.
00:30:32
And I, and I'm sitting there and like, well, I'm the one that's
00:30:34
trying to actually help and get to the root of the problem
00:30:37
versus just turning a blind eye to it.
00:30:39
Sure. So but failure factory is it
00:30:42
explains the root of the problem.
00:30:43
The root of the problem is a failing public education system
00:30:46
and and the point that I make in the book is Baltimore City, I
00:30:51
believe, is at the end stages of what a failing public education
00:30:55
system does to a community and does to a society.
00:30:58
Every single year Baltimore City is is labeled as one of the most
00:31:02
dangerous, deadliest cities, not just in America, but in the
00:31:05
Western Hemisphere. It's 20 to 25% of the people
00:31:09
live in poverty. See all the.
00:31:12
Lists. They're on there.
00:31:13
Baltimore is always on there, and this city used to have
00:31:16
nearly 1 people. Now it's down to about 500.
00:31:20
So people are getting out of the city.
00:31:22
And I contend that those issues are not the problem.
00:31:25
Those issues are a symptom of the problem.
00:31:28
The problem is that for generations the public education
00:31:32
system has simply not been providing its own people with
00:31:36
the education that they need. And they they're not graduating
00:31:39
with the skills that are required to get a good job and
00:31:43
have a good. I mean, and, and you said
00:31:45
earlier you mentioned and I and I can't imagine that it's, it's
00:31:49
limited to just Baltimore. You you believe that this is
00:31:53
widespread. This is happening all throughout
00:31:56
the country. Well, we know it's not just
00:31:57
happening in other urban areas like Milwaukee and Detroit.
00:32:00
Yeah, it's not just a few, I mean.
00:32:02
I'm no, no, it's not just those areas like the, the idea, the
00:32:06
idea of prioritizing the needs of the adults over the needs of
00:32:10
the students. That is happening all throughout
00:32:13
the country. And, and we can see it.
00:32:15
And what we need to do is that we need to recognize it.
00:32:18
And that that was the first part of like why I wrote Failure
00:32:21
Factory is to have conversations like this and hopefully people
00:32:25
will hear it and read the book and say, OK, well, I didn't
00:32:28
realize that schools don't get money to educate kids.
00:32:30
They get money to enroll kids. Maybe we should try to change
00:32:33
the incentive base. Maybe we should look, yeah,
00:32:36
maybe we should look at it from a different perspective, you
00:32:39
know, things like that. And, and, and really start to
00:32:42
dig into this because we we can't have more Baltimore's.
00:32:46
We can't have more Baltimore's. We have to do better.
00:32:49
And even if you're listening to this and, and you're home
00:32:51
schooling or put your kid in public private school or
00:32:54
parochial school or Catholic school, whatever it may be, just
00:32:57
remember this, 90% of the kids in this country go to public
00:33:01
school. And that means 90% of future
00:33:04
voters and 90% of future taxpayers are currently in
00:33:09
public school. So even if you do not have your
00:33:12
kids in public school, just think about how important the
00:33:15
public schools are for the future of America.
00:33:17
I mean, you couldn't say it better there.
00:33:20
I I'm finding that something like this and I hate to bring it
00:33:24
back to Nick Shirley just because again, that's what
00:33:26
sparked me And and I, you know, for the as much clout as he's
00:33:31
gotten. I, I, I feel like it did wake a
00:33:33
lot of people up to what we're what we're blind to to compare
00:33:36
the two. I've found that I don't mean to
00:33:38
completely jump off off topic here, but what I do hear a lot
00:33:42
is breakdown this partisan nonsense.
00:33:45
Do you find that in what you do with Project Baltimore that
00:33:50
you're finding one side? And we don't have to go into who
00:33:52
it does what, but do you find like it's that it's divided and
00:33:55
that people want to, the ones calling you racist are on this
00:33:58
side and the ones that aren't are on this side.
00:34:00
And do you find that it's a partisan issue or do you think
00:34:02
that is just limited to Minnesota right now?
00:34:04
Oh. Of course, it's part of Yeah, We
00:34:06
live. We live in America.
00:34:07
We politicize weather in this country.
00:34:09
That's true. We politicize snow.
00:34:12
I mean, it's so. I mean public education, yeah.
00:34:16
So public education is, is is certainly not immune to that.
00:34:20
And you have a lot of very powerful political forces that
00:34:23
are involved. And again, what's it go back to?
00:34:26
Money? There's a lot, there's a lot of
00:34:29
money out in Baltimore City. One of the things that we're
00:34:32
seeing is that this is a city that's that's controlled by one
00:34:35
political party, and it has been controlled by one political
00:34:39
party for a very long time. Baltimore City has not had a
00:34:42
Republican elected to City Council since the 1930s and has
00:34:48
not had a Republican elected mayor since the 1960s.
00:34:52
So this is a one party rule city.
00:34:55
And, and I'm not suggesting Republicans have all the
00:34:57
answers, but what I am certainly suggesting is that two party
00:35:01
control is better than one party rule because in the one party
00:35:04
rule you have no checks and balances.
00:35:06
And that's what we're seeing. And and that's where you see the
00:35:09
worst school systems in America, that being Milwaukee, Detroit,
00:35:14
Cleveland and Baltimore. They're all one party rule
00:35:18
cities. And it's not because those kids
00:35:20
can't learn. It's not because they're
00:35:23
incapable of understanding math or English at grade level.
00:35:27
It's because their school systems are not held accountable
00:35:29
by the public officials and the elected officials in that city.
00:35:33
And if the schools aren't going to be held accountable to
00:35:35
improve, they're not going to improve.
00:35:38
And it's a very easy statement to say because we have decades
00:35:41
of data to back it up. Yeah, and it is that simple.
00:35:44
I mean, it's if somebody doesn't go in there and, and, you know,
00:35:48
bust busted open hat and and hold them accountable, then
00:35:51
what, where's the incentive to change?
00:35:53
I mean, these, these are these seem so basic.
00:35:55
And I think that's where I'm, I'm frustrated with myself
00:35:57
because I I feel like I'm asking these very bland questions, but
00:36:01
it's kind of like I'm so shocked and that's why I brought the
00:36:04
partisan issue. I'm so shocked that that anybody
00:36:08
the same thing with Shirley and all that going on in
00:36:09
Minneapolis. I'm so surprised that anybody
00:36:12
could sit here and go, oh, man, and I better, I better act like,
00:36:16
you know, the fraud's not happening or the this now that
00:36:19
that Mister Paps is talking to us about isn't happening Just
00:36:23
because I don't want to, you know, insult the black community
00:36:26
or I don't want to insult the Somali community, or I don't
00:36:28
want to agree with Republicans or I don't want it.
00:36:31
It seems to me like everybody should be able to get on the
00:36:34
same page about something like this.
00:36:37
And so my goal here and what I do a lot on this show is I try
00:36:40
and just push this common sense, like can we just come together
00:36:44
on a few things and start there? So that's kind of why I'm asking
00:36:47
these basic questions. Thank you for bearing.
00:36:49
That's exactly why I wrote Failure Factory Man, because I
00:36:52
don't think people know this stuff.
00:36:53
I, I, I think that like in 2020, America changed obviously.
00:36:58
And when school came home and when, when the computer came to
00:37:04
your house and people saw what was happening, they were really
00:37:07
disturbed. And that shifted the Overton
00:37:10
window and people really started talking about public education.
00:37:14
And, and what I see Failure Factory is the extension of that
00:37:18
because now kids are back in school and this book is taking
00:37:21
you back into school and is getting, is showing you exactly
00:37:25
what's happening, how the data is manipulated, how the grades
00:37:29
are changed, how the kids are matriculated through where the
00:37:32
money is going. All of that is in there.
00:37:35
And, and I just really hope that that people pick up a copy of
00:37:38
the book and get a hold of me and, you know, start the
00:37:40
conversation, write reviews online, get people interested
00:37:43
because this is fixable and we have to fix it.
00:37:46
I mean, it's got to be, you know, it's as simple as
00:37:48
awareness. I mean, I, I'm going to agree
00:37:50
completely with you that no one, no one knows.
00:37:53
I mean, people are starting to, to kind of open up a little bit.
00:37:55
But I had, I mean, I thought there may be a few things here
00:37:58
and there, but I think, you know, with failure Factory, I
00:38:01
think I'm excited to get just more details and, and not stuff
00:38:05
that's just, you know, a little bit of too much jargon for
00:38:08
people to kind of not all, all the laws.
00:38:12
And it's like some text messages, you know, here here's
00:38:16
here's what Julie said. And I think people will be able
00:38:19
to completely connect with it. I'm looking forward to it.
00:38:22
I'm gonna get it, get it rolling here today.
00:38:24
Get it. Make sure I get it.
00:38:25
Yeah, man, pick up a copy. I'm gonna bring up a copy.
00:38:27
For sure, I can come right back on and we can pick up the
00:38:29
conversation with one of the other things that cuz what we're
00:38:32
talking about here, man, this is 25 pages of a 250 page book.
00:38:36
Yeah, I know. So I, I I could sit here and
00:38:38
talk to you about it for for forever.
00:38:40
Is anybody that listens to the show knows I can, I can ramble
00:38:43
and and again, I'm in back into a new office in a new studio.
00:38:46
And so I it's not as aesthetically pleasing.
00:38:49
So I appreciate you for kind of bearing with me on a this
00:38:52
episode. So I would love to read it get
00:38:55
you back on a little while and then and then I'll be I'll be
00:38:58
more knowledgeable about it and hopefully a couple people it'll
00:39:02
spread and that's that's I'm sure what your goal is.
00:39:04
If you could real quick and then we'll wrap it up.
00:39:07
I hate to do it, but cameras off and you had maybe one thing that
00:39:12
parents could take away from the book.
00:39:14
You, your investigation, you're just this, this idea.
00:39:19
Is there one thing that can fix it?
00:39:21
Is there one one thing that you want people to take away from
00:39:25
listening to us or from reading your book?
00:39:27
It's just one thing. I know that sounds basic again.
00:39:30
Well, the one thing would be that you need to be involved if
00:39:33
you have kids, be in the, in the school, just know the teacher,
00:39:38
know the principal, make sure that they know that you're
00:39:40
there. And that is how you help your
00:39:42
family to help America. And, and I don't, I mean that
00:39:46
fully to help America, we have to vote for people that are
00:39:51
going to hold the school systems accountable.
00:39:53
And it's not a Democrat or Republican thing.
00:39:55
It's a hey, if you're going to raise my taxes and you're going
00:40:00
to raise my vehicle registration fees and all these other things,
00:40:03
and you're going to give most of that money to a public school
00:40:06
system, I would expect you to hold that public school system
00:40:10
accountable if the academic outcomes don't improve.
00:40:13
That's what we need. We need warriors that are going
00:40:17
to do that, that are going to make sure that your tax dollars
00:40:20
are not wasted, but most importantly that the lives of
00:40:23
these kids are not wasted. And what we said earlier in the
00:40:26
show that the school systems are prioritizing the needs of the
00:40:30
adults over the needs of the students.
00:40:32
Yet the failure factory in this eight years, I think I lay out
00:40:35
the case for why that is absolutely happening and I'm
00:40:39
using data to show it and anecdotes from teachers and
00:40:43
administrators and parents and and students to show that that
00:40:47
is indeed happening. Because what we can see is that
00:40:50
many more adults are being hired to work in the school systems.
00:40:54
They're getting very good salaries, but the kids are
00:40:57
suffering and the kids academics are not improving.
00:41:00
So if there's thing that's improving in the school systems,
00:41:03
it is the money and the number of adults that are being
00:41:06
employed. It's not the kids.
00:41:08
So where is the focus? Focus isn't the kids. 100% and
00:41:12
and but what happens it leads to other elements of these kids
00:41:16
lives and that affect other people's lives around them.
00:41:20
The communities continue to, to have issues and we all, we all
00:41:24
know what that is. I'm not going to sugarcoat it,
00:41:26
you know, whether it's violence or this or that.
00:41:28
I mean, if the kids aren't prepared, they're not going to
00:41:30
do well and then they're going to turn to other things.
00:41:33
And, and so education to me would be, I think it's, I think
00:41:37
it's education and I think it's also full families.
00:41:39
That's a whole different discussion.
00:41:41
I think that's 1A and 1B to help in the communities.
00:41:45
One last thing. I, I, I just remember something
00:41:47
I want to, I'm not, I can't let you go without asking.
00:41:49
How high up do you think this goes?
00:41:52
And I know we've said that it's everywhere and I definitely, I
00:41:55
can see that 100%. Does it go to a federal level as
00:41:59
high? I mean, do people at that level
00:42:02
see this around the country? And is it something that we need
00:42:05
to hold them accountable as well?
00:42:07
Or is it pretty much kind of local?
00:42:09
Does that make sense? Sure.
00:42:11
I I think it goes to all public officials because schools are
00:42:14
funded by federal, state and local dollars.
00:42:17
So your tax dollars, whether you give it to the federal
00:42:19
government, the state government or your local government, a
00:42:22
portion of that is going to the public school system.
00:42:25
So I would argue that they are all accountable.
00:42:28
All of them should be looking at these public schools saying how
00:42:32
can we improve them and, and how can we make them better.
00:42:35
And I think that what we have seen in public education over
00:42:39
the past 20 years is we haven't seen any changes structurally in
00:42:45
how schools are put together. Now we are seeing a school
00:42:49
choice movement spreading across the country.
00:42:52
And I think it does go back to 2020 and people saying that, OK,
00:42:56
we can't continue to do this because people saw a little bit
00:42:59
about what was going on. And the school choice movement
00:43:02
is expanding. I think it's like 17 states now
00:43:05
now have adopted some sort of universal school choice.
00:43:09
And what you're going to probably see is that over the
00:43:13
next couple years that those states are going to see probably
00:43:17
better academic outcomes than the other states because you're
00:43:20
going to have a certain amount of parents and students that
00:43:23
that take advantage of the school choice programs and go to
00:43:26
better schools and get a better education.
00:43:29
We've also seen it in in the big beautiful bill that passed last
00:43:33
year by Donald Trump, that there are these voucher scholarships,
00:43:38
these these private investment voucher scholarship system that
00:43:42
has been created and that is a school choice option.
00:43:45
So far, 28 states have said they're going to opt into that
00:43:50
program. Maryland is not one of them.
00:43:52
So this is going to be a lot of money that is going to be going
00:43:56
to education in the states that opt into it.
00:44:00
But the people are going to be able to use the money for the
00:44:02
educational services that they want.
00:44:04
And in a state like Maryland, Maryland wants to control,
00:44:07
Maryland, wants to tell you how the education dollars are going
00:44:12
to be spent. They don't want you deciding how
00:44:14
your education dollars are going to be spent.
00:44:16
So those movements are certainly happening in the country right
00:44:19
now. Awesome.
00:44:20
That's and I, I think that's, that's a good spot to kind of
00:44:23
end on and and then hopefully you'll give me a chance.
00:44:26
We can pick it back up down the road and and go from there.
00:44:29
What I like I said what I do to end here with my with my peeps
00:44:33
that watch and and they're more not to insult my people.
00:44:37
They like the my feedback is that they enjoy enjoy the dumbed
00:44:42
down version. And what I mean by that, of
00:44:44
course, is again, they can come here and listen for 15 minutes
00:44:48
to me. You give them just enough of
00:44:50
what they need because people are busy.
00:44:52
People don't have time to research.
00:44:53
I'm going to try and do my best to do that for them.
00:44:56
And what I really like about you and what our conversation was
00:45:00
and then what I'm when I'm hearing that this book is going
00:45:02
to be again, can't wait to check it out.
00:45:04
Is that exactly that that you're not trying to say you're an
00:45:07
overwhelm anybody. You just people need to be the
00:45:10
first step is, is awareness and you move it up and then
00:45:13
everybody accountability, you get to there.
00:45:16
And I think that's something that I think people will take
00:45:19
away from this conversation. So I'm very, very happy about
00:45:21
it. So I will, I'm going to push the
00:45:23
book everywhere. I'm going to push your other
00:45:24
ones. I see you have a few other ones
00:45:26
out there that we didn't talk about.
00:45:27
I do I, I, I have a master's in creative writing, which most of
00:45:31
my, my people know then. So I've noticed there was a
00:45:34
novel. So I'm intrigued by that as
00:45:36
well. We'll talk about that later, but
00:45:39
I'll push all of it and I'll, I'll make sure that everybody
00:45:41
knows where to, where to get it. So I know you, you've got work
00:45:44
to do. I've got house to, to unbox and
00:45:47
unpack and, and I can't wait to get this out and then I know
00:45:51
everybody will enjoy this And, and you're starting to see this
00:45:54
country kind of open its eyes a little bit to a lot that's
00:45:56
happening and we can just stop each other for two seconds,
00:46:00
maybe especially after the, the state of the Union last night.
00:46:04
That was entertaining to say the least.
00:46:06
So, but Chris, it was a great it was an absolute blast.
00:46:09
You know, this is you're the type of person I really wanted
00:46:11
to get on here. Thank you for taking the time to
00:46:14
do it. So I'm going to push that book
00:46:16
and again tell us what it is. Yeah, books called Failure
00:46:20
Factory. How Baltimore City Public
00:46:22
Schools Deprive Taxpayers and Students of the Future.
00:46:24
You can pick it up anywhere. And if you do, and you get a
00:46:26
chance to read it, please reach out to me.
00:46:28
Let me know and let's keep the conversation going.
00:46:31
Yep, you got a new fan so I'll I'll check it out and I hope to
00:46:34
have you on soon. Thank you.
00:46:36
All right. Thanks, buddy.
00:46:37
Appreciate it. Just listen up.