Jun 16, 2009 5:24 pm US/Central
Nearly 60% Won't Graduate At South Side School
44 Of 77 Students At Bradwell Elementary Did Not Pass Eighth Grade
A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one
Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the
eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate
about who's to blame.
It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you
blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame
their parents?
The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no
warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and
other parents insist she did not do enough.
Tatianna Dennis' son, Tarrell, took his eighth grade photo complete
with cap and gown, but the day before his grammar school's graduation,
Tarrell learned he would not be marching down the aisle.
"I asked him why but he was so heartbroken, he couldn't really talk," said Tatianna Dennis.
Dennis says she had no idea her son was about to fail English; no
written notices from Bradwell Elementary, she says, and no warning from
his teacher.
Tarrell had failed English two times before, but Dennis thought he was doing better.
"They told me that he was fine. He was starting to come around and his
grades were picking up," Dennis said. "They never gave me any
indication that he was going downhill."
It was a disastrous year for the eighth grade at the south side
Bradwell Elementary school in a tough neighborhood with high poverty.
More than half the class, 44 of 77 students, did not graduate.
Loetisis Billingsley's nephew is one of those failing students.
"It's horrible because these kids were under the impression they were
graduating, and they let them know at the last minute that they
wasn't," Billingsley said.
The Board of Education insists the Bradwell school did everything
possible to keep the students' grades up, offering extra credit and
school on Saturday. And the Board says written notices did go out.
Some parents came to the defense of the school.
"You have to be in your kid's life, you have to know what's going on in
their world," said parent Vanessa Ewing. "I'm up at the school. The
teachers know me. I stay on them. I stay on my kids."
"It was something that child must not have been doing right in order for him to stay behind," said parent Sharon Shavers.
Tatianna Dennis' son is now in summer school. She works nights as a
security guard, leaving her little time with Tarrell to supervise his
homework.
"Especially now, when I need the help the most, with situations like
this," Dennis said. "And there's nobody but me. But I get through it."
On an encouraging note, Dennis says her son is so upset he failed
eighth grade, he is now determined to be a better student, pass his
classes this summer and go on to high school.
In that south side neighborhood, another mother said she has all the
cell phone numbers of her kids' teachers and she calls them all the
time, and her kids are doing well in school.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher (1788-1860)
