The study being released today comes from the Center for Education Policy, a public education advocacy group based in Washington. It is one of a series of studies in several states the group is conducting, and this one examines school restructuring in four selected Ohio systems, including the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
President of the Center Jack Jennings says one outstanding point here which mirrored the rest of the country - is that the longer children are in school, the tougher it becomes to make systemic changes.
JACK JENNINGS: "We see increases in achievement in early elementary schools, but then the increases are not as great in middle school, and not great at all in High School. HS seems to be a real bottle neck to reform of public schools in the United States; and the schools that seem to be doing the worst are the urban High Schools"
Which is exactly the pattern Cleveland witnessed. Its schools were consistently failing state and national standards for achievement, graduation rates, and year-to-year progress. And in Ohio, says Jennings, Cleveland is not alone.
JENNINGS: "The number of schools that have to be restructured, which is the last stage of change among schools that haven't been doing well, has doubled in the last year - and the state is grappling with how to try improving so many schools. The state is trying to improve strategy because what it was doing in the past didn't seem to have much success, because many schools didn't leave restructuring.
Yet he sees the possibility that some schools can achieve that mark - and the schools he sees doing that; are in Cleveland.
JENNINGS: "Cleveland seems to have shown progress in raising test scores. But Cleveland is struggling with other problems, financial, social. It's a struggle to make headway - but Cleveland does show it can start to reverse things, and make the schools better."
Eric Gordon is Chief Academic Officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. He agrees with Jennings that the system's former manner of education was detrimental to learning.
ERIC GORDON: "We know that what's important for all kids and is particularly important for urban students is rigorous curriculum, which every child deserves, that's relevant, that they care about, 'Why do I have to do this?' and that is built on relationships. That gets lost when you have 18-hundred kids.
Gordon is part of the new wave of administrators in Cleveland the last two years, and was quick to tout improvements at the three high schools which the C.E.P. studied - Marshall, East Tech, and East.
GORDON: I'm not happy with where they've come to... but they've made gains. They are the perfect example of asking hard-working people to do a task that is probably not going to be done. We cannot continue to try to operate schools that were built for a different time in the same way. When we look at East, East Tech and Marshall, as we think about what those schools are going to look like, which is exactly what this report is suggesting, we have a number of incubators that tell us what's working. We need to replicate them and put one at East and put one at Marshall and make them stand alone and independent…
That's Cleveland's plan - not a suggestion from the study.
Yet Gordon says that the report does have shortcomings.
GORDON: "What this report suggests is that nobody has figured out how to do large comprehensives. It suggests that Cleveland's strategy is likely to get us there, because our strategy was to create a new kind of school to replace an old kind of school.."
Small successes like that are echoing across Ohio, in the other systems studied - and in schools across the state.
Dr. Stephen Barr is Associate Superintendent of the Ohio Department of Education's "Center for School Improvement". A source for the researchers, he's responsible for a 250-member team of state experts and analysts which is visiting individual school districts - and finding ways to help them.
DR. STEPHEN BARR: "We're really trying to change definitions of leadership, the definitions of who should be involved in these types of processes, and really getting down to understanding your problem much more in depth before trying to solve that and just spending time and money, on maybe, on the wrong types of things."
Jack Jennings of C-E-P says Ohio may be on a track which puts it in a position for other states to come here, to observe what works for teenagers in their areas.
JENNINGS: "The State of Ohio recently has shown a willingness to try new things like the STEM initiative, the Industrial Arts High School initiative in Cleveland. Leaders are trying to find new ways to solve old problems and that's good - because obviously the ways of the past aren't working very well, especially for inner city kids.
In states examined earlier, and where the work is beyond the first year, the C-E-P team studies impact as well, which it won't do in Ohio for another year or more.
It also didn't address the old bugaboo of money - and in a week which saw virtually every school levy on an Ohio ballot defeated - funding projects like this one remains a large concern for Jennings - and for Gordon.
GORDON: "I think economically, you can't vote on your gas tank - and you can vote on your schools. As long as we have a climate where you have to make a choice and you really only have one choice, you're going to see that problem."
A problem the Center on Education Policy will include in its presentation to Congress - whose members will make the ultimate decision on supporting `No Child Left Behind'.
Rick Jackson, 90.3