Nearly 60% Won't Graduate At Chicago Southside's Myra Bradwell Elementary, Some Parents Such as Tatianna Dennis Blame the School for her Son's Failure

Chicago Public Schools are in the news again and this time the reports are pretty damning. Apparently CBS2's Jim Williams reported that 44 out of 77 students flunked the eighth grade at Myra Bradwell Elementary School. Not only have these students fallen through the cracks by the school system, their parents failed them as well. The finger-pointing has begun, with some parents saying it's the school's fault, while others say it's the fault of the parents. In poor communities, the school administration is usually the scapegoat, with the parents removing themselves from the equation. What I find utterly preposterous is that Tatianna Denis, the mother of Tarrell Dennis, who failed the eighth grade, said in an interview with CBS2 that she "got no warning her son was struggling. The school said 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."

Wait, hasn't it ever occurred to her that she could have checked his grades or even attended a parent-teacher meeting during the course of the year? Surely there were signs that this kid was flunking out of school and she would have seen them if she took the time to look. So, blaming the school is utterly ridiculous on so many levels. The problem is this woman works at nights as a security guard, how in the world can she monitor what her child is doing at night. This leads me to another question, who is the other authority figure in the home when she's not there? A father? Or the kid taking care of himself? It's time for these black fathers to play their roles and stop being sperm donors and being transient or nonexistent in the lives of their kids. The problem most of these kids are facing started in their homes, not in the schools.

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. Source: CBS2 News

As a parent, I keep in close contact with my children's teachers. The school as an Internet function that allows me to see my children's grades and their attendance, so anything that doesn't seem right, I can address immediately. Ms. Dennis should be ashamed of pointing a finger at the school's limitations rather than looking at her own failure to monitor her child's progress in school. Stop blaming the schools, start being a better parent! One thing I will concede, that had this been a school in the suburbs, the school would have been a lot more proactive in stemming this trend and the parents would have been much more involved in the lives of their children.