There's a lot of reasons, but part of it is because school choice results in a chaotic commute for kids and schools who have students all over the city.

As a ghost who died trying to do homework on I-83, I'd say it's risky.

College Readiness is NOT a luxury. Just because you're seeing the schools with the worst scores doesn't mean there aren't students in the city doing amazingly well. I commend you for actually looking at the budget, but I'm not convinced your approach would fix much.

Also, as a side note, the reason why Baltimore spends so much per pupil is because poor kids are more expensive to teach. Their immediate physical needs (food, clothes, before- and after-care) that can't be provided at home are often provided by the schools. Poor students often need counselors, school nurses, and psychologists at much higher rates than rich kids, also paid for by the school. Do you have any idea how many of my students rely on the school nurse as their source of primary care? Not to mention the fact that many of Baltimore's schools are falling apart and need constant fixes just to be habitable. It's the Sam Vines Boots-Theory at the systemic scale.

Are we paying too much on personnel? Maybe! But there aren't exactly qualified teachers lining up to work in a school system whose main source of media representation is Fox45's smear campaign. Even at the rates we pay now, we can't fill all of our vacancies.

You're talking about intergenerational poverty, right? The people in abject poverty you're discussing are born into that. You are writing them off as lost causes who should be sequestered from the rest of us because of their cost to society.

I mean, we'd save money on building ramps, too, if we paid disabled people to stay home. But we don't do that. Because it's bad.

If not literally eugenics, then it's the idea of eugenics applied to economics. "Disabled people shouldn't have kids because it's bad for our gene pool" isn't that different than "Poor people from terrible neighborhoods shouldn't participate in society because it's bad for our economy." It's a bad idea and you should feel bad about promoting it.

You're discussing sequestering people from society based on their heritable conditions. Sounds a lot like eugenics to me.

Of course it can, it just takes a massive investment of time and resources. You're just pushing eugenics.

Here's the current city schools budget. How would you reallocate the money if you're so smart?

Actually, the state oversees a lot of city schools' business after some scandals back in the day. It's a weird mix of local and stat authority that makes it harder to get anything done.

The program keeps people off the streets, if only temporarily.

I'd love to know more about your tenant's situation from their view because, frankly, I have no idea what the full story is, here. But even in the worst case scenario (i.e. they're gaming the system to get free housing), the program is still defensible. If 100 families game the system, and one person uses it in a time of genuine financial hardship, it's worth it to me. People are more important to me than your bottom line.

At the risk of sounding snarky, this is the risk you take on when you become a landlord. This is the life you chose.

Also, they're "almost" a year behind and you're already $25k in the hole? That's a lot of money you're charging for a single home/apartment/whatever.

TL;DR: Homelessness is worse than unpaid rent