Maryland ranks at the bottom in the nation along with New York, Connecticut, Alabama, Mississippi, Michigan, Illinois, and Florida in diploma attainment for African Americans.
Unemployment in Baltimore City has dropped from 5.5 percent to 4.9 percent in the last year of record, but 4.9 percent is way too high for Baltimore as it struggles to reduce crime, especially since unemployment in the United States stood at 3.6 percent in April 2019. Trump’s attack on Baltimore did not include the fact that unemployment is too high there. Period. Trump is hiding the fact that Baltimore needs more jobs. And Fox News just helped Trump by its interview with Governor Larry Hogan. Jobs are on the way because of an infrastructure need that was mentioned by the governor (a tunnel), but Trump did not mention that in his attack as he probably did not know about it.
Governor Larry Hogan does have some redeeming values as his history shows us, but he is in charge of the State of Maryland. Who does he think he is fooling? He talks about the failure of the schools, but the State of Maryland is responsible for high school equivalency testing in the state and sharing the blame or success shows transparency and honesty, but the main question is what does the governor know about G.E.D. testing in his state? He should have stayed away from Fox News, but we know that is the place to blast Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore even as he tries to moderate things. He can be fair, but this is a serious subject. With 6,3888 passers on the G.E.D. in 2013 and with things getting worse after that, we can ascertain where the government of Maryland before and during his administration has gone wrong. At that time African Americans made 43 percent of the test takers and out of those test takers 57 percent were passers. That gives us a grand total of 1,522 passers during the year which is about 25 percent of the test takers. I cannot tell you the numbers for Baltimore but I wish we could ask the Department of Education of Maryland to provide the statistics for each zip code in Elijah Cummings’ district so we could know. There is more than a 25 percent gap between Whites and African Americans on the G.E.D. test in 2013. Now that is something to take into one of the first meetings with the Governor’s Association.
My point is that those numbers reflect sharing and caring about the people of Baltimore, in this case only the African Americans. We could show statistics for White people, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans as well in this manner. It is disappointing that a leader of our nation would say anything about the great state of Maryland, especially a state with a Republican governor. My conclusion must be that the governor is doing a pretty bad job since Democrats are attacked for the same things when they control the government. But where is the help for Maryland, particularly for the population discussed including the unemployed and the criminals? How many people returning from prisons have obtained their diplomas annually who walked away from prison diploma-less? The public should not be judging from a Fox News presentation and the staff of Fox News reveals itself, as well, for lack of knowledge.
I say that every member of every family should walk to church in Baltimore with a Bible in his or her hand, but also with a diploma at home. Those diplomas mean jobs and better jobs and we see that the poverty rate provided by Fox News is much greater than that across our nation (22.4 percent). Watch the video on Fox News and please send this to Fox News so that it can learn much more. Where are the great jobs creation that Trump has been creating? Where have Trump and the administration of Larry Hogan been for the last two and a half years? And keep in mind that on Friday Governor Hogan became the head of the National Governors Association.
Questions.
What has the governor done to boost the passing rate on the G.E.D. of African Americans?
What new testing centers has he provided since he took office to help everyone? And additional testing seats for all so that people can advance their education.
What has he learned about this important diploma from other states that achieve much higher success rates? Sharing and caring are essential. Talk is cheap.
Is Governor Hogan even open to discussing this matter with churches and local groups without selecting representatives the way that Donald Trump does? A discussion is needed where all groups can participate.
And get this. I look forward to hearing the governor issue a statement where he explains just how many G.E.D. diplomas have been earned by the people of Maryland since he took office. And how many men and women have earned their diplomas in state prisons?
If you haven’t read Trump: Make Baltimore Great yet, here it is with solutions. Maybe Hogan can return to Fox News to talk about these things to a national audience?
Cities across our nation have gun buy backs, but Baltimore has to emphasize putting down the guns and earning a G.E.D. now. I also strongly recommend that all three high school equivalencies should be testing in Maryland now so that more diplomas can be earned. I will provide more information on that another time. And one more thing. This is information that you will not hear during the presidential debates unless things change immediately.
School failures combined with church failures have affected significant portions of our population. In the 19th century throughout the world there was great amounts of crime before there were even schools. Most of the governors since Spiro Agnew in Maryland have been Democrats, but if the Republican governors showed no concern or even “deliberate indifference” to the great needs of its people at the state level, then what proof do those Republicans have that things would have been better if Democrats have not been elected. There is a hall of shame for everyone in office once things are properly exposed. Communities also think of that third-grade reading score which they feel is that “pipeline to prison” without even thinking clearly that the game is not over in the third inning. Seventeen years old students could have taken the G.E.D. test in massive doses instead of the weak numbers that we noticed in 2013 under a Democratic governor, but the numbers were also built up by a Republican who had previously been in office. It would have been great to say that Maryland had governors who knew what to do and today the people need a governor who knows what to do. That just isn’t the situation right now as Baltimore’s youth pick up guns instead of their G.E.D. The governors could have been showing the mayor of Baltimore what to do and that never happened.
Governor Hogan could have mentioned this in his Fox News interview as well “To this day, they thank me. Governor, thank you for caring about the city, thank you for coming in. And the fact that we keep coming back, we have programs to help returning citizens and people that are formerly incarcerated that we’re providing job training, workforce development, trying to put them into jobs so that they don’t have to resort to crime and go back to jail.” I found the governor’s important quote about fighting crime in Baltimore, but on Fox News that type of comment takes a back seat to promoting crime without showing the progress. And we want to know from the governor what increases have taken place in those programs since the previous administration and how effective those programs really are.
The census will be accomplished soon and that is where the G.E.D. statistics have come from. The four-year graduation rate from high school in Baltimore City in 2018 was nearly 72.2 percent (which has been steady and significant rise in the graduation rate and that is not bad when compared with other similar cities. Education does help reduce crime levels, but violent crime is also about those guns on the streets. So a major part of the problem really is in the governor’s hands to act on. You are not going to hear that on Fox News.