Was Lisa Hudson's Son Flunked By The System?

by Megan Cottrell · 2010-12-17 10:30:00 UTC
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Lisa Hudson says no one ever told her she could appeal the decision. Her son's teacher at Black Magnet Elementary School in Chicago had decided to flunk her son from summer school reading, making him repeat sixth grade.

She never even knew he was having trouble in reading. He had been sent to summer school for low math scores.

Hudson is a part of a group of Chicago parents called PURE - Parents United for Responsible Education - that's lodging a civil rights  complaint against the Chicago Public Schools because they say the system overwhelmingly flunks children of color.

PURE executive director Julie Woestehoff says CPS has continued to flunk students by the thousands despite research that shows holding kids back doesn't help them academically and often leads to them dropping out of school at an early age.

"It's like you have a bureaucratic door shut in your face, and then you're left with a child who is unhappy and doesn't want to go to school," says Woestehoff.

And who gets that door shut in their face seems to be related to the color of their skin. PURE says black students were forced to repeat a grade at a rate nearly five times of white students, and Latino students at 1.5 times white students.

The group also objects to how CPS determines which kids are failing. They use ISAT scores - state test scores used to determine how a school is doing - to decide who has to go to summer school. If a child doesn't succeed at summer school, they have to repeat that grade.

But state officials say ISAT scores are for school accountability, not individual student performance. And PURE says historically, students of color perform less well on standardized tests than white students.

PURE has a history of standing up to the Chicago Public Schools - protesting the closing of schools, money diverted to charter schools and making sure parents have a say in their school. This latest complaint is just one move in the line of many attempts to get CPS to pay attention to its poorest students and make sure every Chicago kid has access to a decent education.

Photo credit: Karyn Christner

Megan Cottrell is a reporter and writer living in Chicago.
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