New York Post

DA eyes ‘Maspeth Minimum’

- Nolan Hicks and Bruce Golding

Authoritie­s are looking into a grade-fixing scandal at a city high school that boasts a near-perfect graduation rate, the Queens District Attorney’s Office said Monday.

The allegation­s involving Maspeth HS — revealed in a frontpage Post expose Sunday (inset) — are “under review by our Public Integrity Bureau,” a spokespers­on for acting DA John Ryan said.

Seven teachers have told The Post they were pressured to pass undeservin­g students as part of an unwritten school policy that kids call the “Maspeth Minimum.”

The no-fail directive allegedly allowed 99 percent of kids to graduate in four years in 2018, the latest year for which data is available, and led US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to name Mapseth a National Blue Ribbon School the same year.

Ryan learned about the alleged scam from city Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who shared the teachers’ claims during a meeting at Queens Borough Hall Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Holden on Monday told The Post that he would “go even further if this is not investigat­ed.”

“The people responsibl­e for much of this should be identified and I would like to see them prosecuted,” he said.

Holden also ripped a decision by Anastasia Coleman, the Special Commission­er of Investigat­ion for the city’s schools, to refer the matter to the Department of Education’s Office of Special Investigat­ions after he sent her an Aug. 7 letter outlining the whistleblo­wers’ “mountain of evidence.”

“I don’t like that they’re in charge of their own probe into grade fraud,” he said of the DOE.

DOE spokeswoma­n Danielle Filson said, “When the Special Commission­er refers allegation­s to the DOE’s Office of Special Investigat­ions, it conducts full, fair and impartial investigat­ions. This will be no different.”

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