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In April 2021 the Maryland Public Policy Institute made a formal request to the Maryland Inspector General for Education asking the ghost student issue be investigated. In September Baltimore City Schools released a report identifying roughly 100 "ghost students" that were attending ghost classes.
The city schools received $10 million in taxpayer money for students who were not students. The full IG report is here. It explains that schools were not following the required procedures noting that students were chronically absent.
The Inspector General’s audit was released on April 20. It reviewed enrollment numbers over the past 5 years and found 928 instances of Baltimore City students who failed to meet attendance or enrollment requirements under Maryland law, and discovered 532 City students had no record of attending school during the year, and thus, were ineligible for funding. In spite of that, City Schools received almost $10 million in taxpayer funding for ghost students.
The Inspector General’s audit was released on April 20. It reviewed enrollment numbers over the past 5 years and found 928 instances of Baltimore City students who failed to meet attendance or enrollment requirements under Maryland law, and discovered 532 City students had no record of attending school during the year, and thus, were ineligible for funding. In spite of that, City Schools received almost $10 million in taxpayer funding for ghost students.
That's stealing from the taxpayer.
Over the same 5-year period, the IG found about 3,000 instances statewide who were not eligible to receive funding, including 995 students who had no documented proof of attendance at any point during the school year. That now adds up to almost $24 million in fraudulently allocated tax dollars.
Sean Kennedy of The Maryland Public Policy Institute, the group that requested the investigation, told Fox 45's WBFF, “It’s a big deal that we are catching them spending money that they should not have had. This is nothing less than theft. They’re stealing money from the taxpayers of Maryland in order to line their pockets or to spend money on other programs when the money was not designated for that.”
At least one of those two things are true, perhaps both.
Teachers were required to mark students truant when they’d been absent for 10 consecutive days, but they failed to take these steps until the student was absent for 105 days out of a 180 day school year.
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Teachers were required to mark students truant when they’d been absent for 10 consecutive days, but they failed to take these steps until the student was absent for 105 days out of a 180 day school year.
The Baltimore City Public Schools system get an F. They have failed the students and the taxpayers. They need to be held criminally accountable. Who was directing teachers to allow this truancy to take place? If we follow the money, we might find out.
This is unbelievable, Rob, what a piece of work. Whose pocket do you think the money is going into?
ReplyDeleteI suspect the head of the school district is getting a piece of the action, and maybe the mayor, but she has more scrutiny.
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