Staten Island mom Deanna Hassell wasn’t shocked when her son flunked the seventh grade. What shocked her was his promotion to the eighth grade.
“Are you kidding me? Is the Board of Education kidding? How does a kid with a 60.53 average pass?” she asked.
“He should be held back! If children are not getting the education they need now, when they get to high school, they are going to drop out.”
So, the 35-year-old full-time mother of three has taken the unusual step of demanding that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein order her son to repeat the seventh grade.
All year, Hassell warned her 13-year-old son, Anthony Raimo, that he would be left back unless he buckled down.
Anthony paid her no mind. He never did homework. He clowned around in class. He missed 55 days of school – more than one out of four – simply because he refused to go.
Still, none of it stopped him from squeaking by at IS 51/Edwin Markham School in Graniteville.
In a fortuitous twist for Anthony, the new criteria to end “social promotion,” which went into full effect this year, actually worked to his benefit. For the first time, seventh-graders were promoted on the basis of just two end-of-the-year tests – not their year’s worth of schoolwork.
He scored a 2 out of 4 on tests in both math and reading. Out of a maximum of 800 points, he got a 608 in reading – 599 was passing. In math, he got a 643 – 610 was passing.
“Ha, ha, I passed. I told you so,” Anthony recalled telling his mom.
He doesn’t even have to go to summer school.
“The message is you don’t have to go to school. You take the two tests, and if you pass, that’s it,” Hassell said.
She called administrators at IS 51 demanding to know how her son could not be left back. After all, he failed every class but math, chorus and gym.
An assistant principal told her their “hands are tied” because Anthony passed the standardized tests, Hassell said.
Principal Emma Della Rocca did not return calls for comment.
The Department of Education said principals have discretion in holding back students who are not ready for the eighth grade.
Robert Tobias, who was director of assessment and accountability for city schools from 1988 to 2001, warned against forcing kids to repeat grades.
“It sounds to me like this kid is bored. Holding him back could be the worst thing to do because it would exacerbate the problem,” said Tobias, who now studies testing policy at New York University.
Hassell, however, believes repeating the seventh grade will be the best lesson for Anthony.
“I don’t deserve all this. This is embarrassing,” Anthony said
Hassell said, “Without an education, he is going to be nothing. He’s going to end up being stuck [working] at McDonald’s.”