7/28/08

Plain Dealer

Thomas Ott

Halfway through his original four-year contract, Eugene Sanders says he still loves serving as chief executive officer of the Cleveland schools.

What’s not to love? Vanishing enrollment and accompanying state pressure to scale back a $1.5 billion building program. Growing urgency to close schools. A need to raise property taxes. Disturbing memories of last year’s shootings at Success Tech Academy.

But Sanders, 51, appears undeterred. He clearly relishes being on the front lines and often refers to his goal: Making Cleveland one of the country’s “premier” school districts.

He is thought by some to be a candidate for state superintendent or a Cabinet-level schools job that Gov. Ted Strickland wants to create. While guarded in discussing such prospects, he says he is still aiming for a 10-year run in Cleveland.

“I’m really happy doing what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m as content now as the day I showed up.”

Sanders, who previously was superintendent in Toledo, is secure in his current job.

Although the school board raised eyebrows with a few recent split votes, Chairman Robert Heard and other members are in Sanders’ corner. So is Mayor Frank Jackson, who oversees the schools under a system imposed on Cleveland by state legislators in 1997.

Jackson, who appointed Sanders, cited the CEO’s efforts to close the achievement gap between Cleveland and suburban students by the third grade and said the district has made good progress on most parents’ No. 1 concern: Security.

“I think as urban centers go, it’s safe,” Jackson said. “Compared to what it used to be, it’s much safer.”

The board last year gave Sanders a one-year contract extension, through 2011. His annual salary is $267,800.

Sanders’ performance has not escaped criticism.

Teachers and parents grumble about schools housing kindergarten through eighth grade, a concept inherited from former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Sanders’ administration believes the older students thrive when not warehoused in middle schools.

Residents rebelled at his conversion of some neighborhood schools into single-gender academies. He alienated people in the Warner-Turney neighborhood by turning a new elementary building into a citywide girls academy. But he backed down at two other sites and instead placed the academies in what had been closed buildings.

Some City Council members complained that their neighborhoods were shorted in the state-funded building program. Most of the squawking came from six West Side lawmakers after officials put off construction of a new high school until at least 2012. They said Sanders broke a promise.

But his critics’ blows have been glancing, and even those who delivered them can be fans. For example, when Sanders’ administration reversed course last week and said it would make the West Side high school an immediate priority, Councilman Jay Westbrook said he had no remaining grievances.

“I would give him excellent grades,” Westbrook said.

Sanders was chummy with former teachers union President Joanne DeMarco, who referred to him as an ally in the battle for student success. New President David Quolke wants to see further improvement in classroom discipline, but he, too, is a supporter.

“I hope he stays for the long run,” Quolke wrote in an e-mail. “Urban districts need stability and leadership. Gene Sanders can give us both of those.”

Admirers laud a graduation rate that the district says has risen from 52 percent in 2005 to more than 60 percent, and a climb from “academic watch” to “continuous improvement” in state ratings.

However, the district could topple from that tenuous perch when state report cards come out next month. Preliminary numbers show test scores have declined in most categories.

Supporters praise the dress code initiated by Sanders and his niche schools, including two new high schools that will focus on science, engineering, technology and mathematics.

Observers say he has increased communication with parents and restored confidence with business and foundation leaders.

“There’s a lot more to be done in Cleveland, but I think we’re on the right track,” said Arnold Pinkney, a former school board member who maintains close ties with the schools.

The district is still far below Sanders’ benchmarks for premier status: a 90 percent graduation rate; 80 percent to 90 percent of graduates going to two- and four-year colleges; and a rating of “effective,” second-highest on the state’s scale of five.

To help, Sanders wants to continue developing the niche schools – “schools of choice,” he calls them – until they comprise about half the district. He said any surviving neighborhood schools must be popular with parents and show academic gains.

Money is always an issue. District officials fear that the state will chop a guarantee that maintains state aid even as enrollment drops.

The subsidy’s present value is nearly $70 million, or 10 percent of the operating budget.

Even with the guarantee, officials say the district will need voter approval of two issues in the next few years: One that extends a property tax for the construction program, plus an increase for operating expenses. Sanders says that in seeking the latter, the district can ask for enough to maintain what it has or can up the ante so it can become premier.

“Can we dream big enough to be what we want to be?” he asks.