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.