Public schools aren’t collapsing from a lack of money, they’re collapsing from how the system is built. Graduation rates rise, learning declines, and accountability quietly disappears.
As public school budgets grow, student outcomes continue to decline, raising questions few institutions want to answer. In this Thursday Deep Dive, Keith Malinak is joined by investigative journalist Chris Papst, author of Failure Factory, to examine how data manipulation, bureaucracy, and incentives quietly shape public education. Using Baltimore as a case study, the conversation exposes how systemic failure is normalized and protected. The episode closes by examining which reforms might actually work, and why meaningful change remains so difficult.