They may be millions of dollars in debt and lack basic multiplication skills, but that’s not stopping Baltimore from pouring taxpayer dollars they don't have into a politically-motivated anti-gun rally in Washington, D.C. later this month.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh announced Tuesday that the city would be providing 60 school buses to shuttle student activists to the anti-gun March For Our Lives in D.C. on March 24, as well as providing free lunches and t-shirts.
BREAKING: Baltimore @MayorPugh50 says the city is organizing 60 free buses to send students to DC for the march against gun violence later this month. Says “let’s show Washington DC that Baltimore matters.” Wants 3,000 city students there. Will be providing lunches and t-shirts. pic.twitter.com/g4QIoS9baA
— Kevin Rector (@RectorSun) March 6, 2018
This is a school district, by the way, that entered into 2017 with about $130 million in debt, eventually trying to offset that massive burden by laying off teachers and staff and increasing class sizes by as many as 10 students per classroom.
According to a recent analysis, one in three Baltimore city high schools don’t have a single student that’s proficient in math. Another six have a student math proficiency rate of less than 1 percent.
In January, several Baltimore schools closed due to heating and plumbing problems. The Baltimore Sun reports that 60 of the city’s 180 school campuses reported building issues, including burst pipes, buckling floors and flooding. In one school, students were forced to suffer in 44-degree temperatures before the city finally decided to close the building for some lean-to repairs.
This is also a school district in a city that boasts some of our nation's toughest gun laws, along with some of its highest murder rates.
But rather than tend to the small matter of thousands of high schoolers who can’t do basic math sitting ankle-deep in flood water in 40-degree temperatures in the dead of winter in a building that hasn’t been fixed up since the pilgrims were first learning to shuck corn in a city ridden with gang violence, Baltimore is instead throwing a bunch of money behind an anti-gun political rally that’s being exploited by the Democratic Party – the same party responsible for the failing city of Baltimore, mind you – to get votes.