In Wake of COVID, Nearly Half of Baltimore High Schoolers Earned Below 1.0 GPA

Editor

July 19, 2021

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — which saw crippling restrictions placed on nearly all aspects of society, including education — nearly half of all high schoolers in Baltimore public schools earned a grade point average of less than 1.0.

WBFF-TV reported last week that 41% of high school students in the city’s public school system earned a GPA below a D. In the quarter preceding the pandemic, 24% of high schoolers earned the same GPA.

For context, Baltimore City schools currently enroll 20,500 high schoolers.

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“It’s heartbreaking,” said Jovani Patterson, a former candidate for Baltimore City Council president, of the thousands of students earning such poor grades. “If almost half of our kids are failing, what options do they have after high school? This is really disheartening. It’s sad to see this.”

He went on to explain the long-suffering consequences that will stem from the failing educational system, telling the local news outlet such poor performances will exacerbate “a cycle of poverty, of despair.”

What does that mean?

Patterson’s concerns are shared by a group of leading economists with the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan public policy research initiative led by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Economists with the PWBM fear U.S. economic productivity will decline by 3.6% over the next three decades as a result of school closures:

Studies have found that remote education reduces learning outcomes for students and infer that current students are likely to earn less in future wages as a result of lower labor productivity. Labor productivity is an integral component of the production of goods, services, and wealth in an economy. Current cohorts of students with reduced education and lower productivity will be a drag on the future GDP of the United States for decades in the future.

The analysis also projected “a 3.5 percent decrease in hourly wages by 2050 relative to the counterfactual where there had been no disruption to learning.”

“Government tax revenues decline and, consequently, government debt cumulates more quickly,” the May report stated. “Higher debt along with less total savings by individuals with lower incomes leads to a lower real capital stock, lowering wages and GDP further.”

Anything else?

Data released in June by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed a 51% increase in the number of emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts by teenage girls. By August of last year, the number of weekly hospital visits for suicide attempts by girls ages 12 to 17 was 26.2% higher than during the same period one year earlier.

According to a May report from the New York Post, the American Federation of Teachers — the second largest teacher’s labor union in the U.S. — lobbied the CDC regarding the reopening of public schools.

In February, just a couple weeks into President Joe Biden’s tenure, the White House distanced itself from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky when she said the vaccination of teachers “is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools.”

The White House — in an attempt to dismiss Walensky’s comment amid pressure from unions — said the CDC director was speaking “in her personal capacity” and not as the head of the CDC.

The union was in regular communication with the CDC and the White House, seeking to influence the language the Biden administration used in its health updates about safety protocols on reopening schools.

All of this came as Biden vowed to “follow the science” and keep politics from influencing his administration’s response to the pandemic.

What does that mean?

Anything else?

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