The Observer, April 20, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 25
Cleveland on Fire: Radical plan may provide solutions for Cleveland schools
Lack of funding, old facilities, unqualified teachers, racial issues, and staff cuts. The reasons and excuses created to attempt to explain why public schooling in Northeast Ohio is failing are endless and completely incorrect. While the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) bears the brunt of bad publicity and dismal academic performance, other suburban districts are increasingly facing the same problems without a realistic solution. Charter schools, dress codes, and single-gender education will make improvements, but will not produce the impact necessary to turn around the district. Instead, the creation of a county-wide integrated school district will lift the academic woes of all areas in Northeast Ohio.
Students in the CMSD cannot succeed in the current environment that they are in. The culture of poverty-stricken streets spills into the hallways of the schools and destroys the education process. In order to level the playing field for all students, the schools need to be desegregated. This may sound very similar to the disastrous busing situation that resulted from Brown v. Board of Education – a complete mistake because of its emphasis on race, which makes no difference in educational performance. What does make a difference, however, is the socioeconomic background of each pupil.
A regional school district should integrate across the country by economics – not by race. Studies have proven that school districts with 20-30 percent of students from economically depressed backgrounds can raise the scores of the poorer students while still maintaining or raising the performance of students from a wealthier background.
The plan for the new school system would design districts that maintained this 70:30 ratio at all schools. This would desegregate students who are economically disadvantaged and level the playing field. Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina – which pioneered this idea – has nearly 95 percent of its students testing at or above state standards.
Although it is an undeniably daunting and radical task, the creation of the Cuyahoga County school district is possible and important.
Opponents of this idea will point to the challenge of creating a school district for over 1.3 million people, cultural tensions, logistics of busing and facilities, and a lack of public support. The last argument must be tackled with one of the largest public information campaigns in the region's history. This campaign would explain every aspect of the idea ranging from why the system is vital to the tiny details of the desegregation process.
Public support is necessary for the implementation and can be achieved through an open and honest process provided by public officials.
People from different sides of town are culturally different even if they are of the same socioeconomic status, so this issue is the most contentious. However, as has been proven in Wake County, there has not been an exodus or protest beyond the initial apprehension. Furthermore, the system will not be designed so that all the less wealthy students are bussed out into the suburban communities, but rather all students will be moved around to create uniformity. The creation of magnet schools will draw the best students from all areas of the county in a variety of subjects and this will propel our children into the most prestigious colleges in the country. Lastly, to help with the issue of bussing students across the county, each school bus will make a limited number of stops where many students will wait – at the local library, school, or city hall.
Some issues that are especially difficult to deal with are sports, activities, and jobs at the high school level. When students are not down the street from home, it is more difficult to partake in after school activities. However, this problem can be partially alleviated using a double-bus system – one that leaves immediately after the school day, and an express bus that leaves around 5 p.m. and gets students close to their homes.
This transformation would go much farther than standardized testing in Northeast Ohio. As the schools are run today, a majority of families use the local school district as a major determinant of where they live.
However, once those lines are re-drawn and all schools are essentially equal, there is a better chance that families will stop moving out and as Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said, "neighborhoods of choice" can be created. Furthermore, this would produce a region where families want to live and move to, which will retain and attract strong companies to Northeast Ohio. Lastly (and most importantly), this approach would finally give the children of our city a chance to develop and succeed.
Although this is the most extreme proposal to fix Cleveland's educational woes, this is the only one that is transformative enough to create change. It has the potential to lift failing inner-city schools out of the basement and at the same time retain the strengths of many existing schools. This plan also comes at a cost to none and a gain to many – that is a regionally-oriented thought process at its most basic level, and it must happen for Northeast Ohio to move ahead of the curve in the 21st century.
Verespej is a senior Political Science/Pre-Law student involved in the performing arts and is also the Executive Director for the Student Turning Point Society.
