4/30/09

Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial

The headline coming out of Wednesday’s annual report from Strive, the education partnership encompassing the three urban school districts at the region’s core, sounded grim: Most high school graduates coming out of the districts are unprepared to take college-level classes.

But the value of the Strive partnership with Cincinnati, Covington and Newport school districts is that it has provided the data showing the districts exactly where they stand. The information is a glaring status report of a kind that too often has been downplayed by districts spinning out their successes and glossing over a comprehensive picture of the state of local education.

There is nothing wrong with touting success stories, but what is the significance of improved graduation rates if the graduates aren’t prepared to take the next step?

Many of the students graduating from the Cincinnati, Newport and Covington schools represent the future work force of this region. That reality was one of the compelling reasons for formation of the Strive network three years ago. The organization includes the three districts, the region’s universities and civic leaders. The network focuses on programs within the schools that have proven successful and then exports that success to the rest of the network.

Transparency of Strive’s data and an unblushing assessment of what its findings show initially caused some uneasy feelings within the districts, said Jeff Edmondson, executive director of the network. But that unease has faded as participants realize that the data, no matter what it shows, is a powerful tool for improvement, he said. It is difficult to make progress without a clear idea of where you need to go.

Not all of the news in the annual report was grim. According to Edmondson, 34 of the 53 measurements in the report showed at least some improvement from previous years. Generally they are small gains, and the numbers show just how much further there is to go, but the movement is in the right direction, said Rob Reifsnyder, president of United Way of Cincinnati and a member of Strive’s executive committee. Case in point: 48 percent of Cincinnati Public Schools’ kindergarten students last year were judged “ready” for school. That obviously means most beginning students are starting out “behind,” but it is a 10 percent improvement from three years ago.

Strive is a consortium that works, as evidenced by other districts across the country that have asked to follow the model established here.

But its success is dependent on the commitment of the participants.

With recent leadership changes in Cincinnati and Covington school districts and the search for a new president under way at the University of Cincinnati, it is imperative that the commitment be maintained.