A shocking report released last week showed there are more than 20 schools in Baltimore City that have zero students proficient in math. In fact, scores from the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program revealed that Baltimore City Schools had the lowest math scores in the entire state. Just 7% of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math citywide.

This news is another reminder of why education freedom is sweeping the nation. Parents are fed up with waiting for the system to fix itself, and leaders from Iowa and Utah to Texas and Oklahoma and many more are quickly moving to give every child the opportunity to have a better education. Although school choice won’t fix every single issue, it will allow students like those in Baltimore to escape a system that has failed them.

I know all too well how important this escape is. Growing up in Ohio, I faced many challenges in the public education system. I was surrounded by poverty, crime, and low expectations, so much so that teachers were shocked when I picked up a comic book and could read it from the beginning to end. No one expected me to succeed.

When I was severely bullied in middle school, the principal told my mother, “In five years, we will have the middle school and high school turned around, and it will be a better place for Walter.” My mother responded with words I’ll never forget: “In five years, Walter will either be in jail or in a body bag, and we certainly don’t have time for either of those.” She grabbed my hand, and I never stepped foot in that school again.

After sheer desperation, my parents discovered the Edchoice Scholarship Program, and my life quickly took a turn for the better. I found myself in a small private school where my education journey could truly flourish. I didn’t have to hide in the bathroom to avoid bullies. I could truly sit, learn, and explore the magic that is a high-quality education. School choice literally changed my life.

While I am grateful to have escaped, there are countless students who do not have the same opportunity.

Any school district with a 7% success rate for its students in any subject should not only be ashamed but held responsible for its utter and complete failure to educate children. Instead, the system makes excuses for itself. In Baltimore, for example, when Fox 45 asked Maryland Delegate Samuel Rosenberg for comment, he replied that he would not comment until “you do a story about students who are succeeding in City schools. You never do.”

These comments sting, especially when I consider how dramatically different my life could be if it had not been for school choice. If the Titanic is sinking, the answer is not to demand stories on how nice the deck chairs look.

Notably, Baltimore City Schools are ranked among the highest per-pupil spending in the country at roughly $21,000 per student per year. This debunks the argument that the solution to educational failures in the public system is more money. Rather, the system needs to be accountable through education freedom programs such as Maryland’sBOOST scholarship and others that give families a way out.

Children can’t wait any longer for the adults to get their act together. Families don’t have time to wait for the current system to improve. Every single day, we are losing potential to a system that has failed time and time again. Maryland students shouldn’t be left out in the cold when so many other states have proved it is possible to put students first. It’s time to fund Maryland students, not the systems that keep failing them.

Walter Blanks is a spokesperson for the American Federation for Children and a graduate of Ohio’s school choice programs.