CEO Sanders must turn the Cleveland schools around -- editorial

"Vision to Victory": That's the optimistic message Cleveland schools CEO Eugene Sanders likes to hand out.

But the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's test scores, rock-bottom statewide yet again, show how fuzzy is the vision and how elusive the victory.

The Ohio Department of Education's 2008-09 report card reveals a 50,000-student school system strangled by failure.

While Cleveland's new innovative schools appear to be working, nearly 70 percent of students are stuck in schools in academic watch or academic emergency, the state's bottom rung.

Sanders promises to try to boost achievement by closing poorly performing and underused schools, and by increasing pockets of excellence, like the new single-gender and specialty schools that have quickly earned excellent scores and good reputations.

One glimmer of hope is that the district made strides last year in the important "value-added" category, with higher-than-expected improvements in how well students are learning despite the overall low scores.

Still, Sanders had better deliver an effective turnaround plan, as promised, by year's end.

Erasing problems already identified by the Council of the Great City Schools would be a good start. The council's report, based on visits to Cleveland schools and classrooms, found teachers and principals had low expectations for students and little accountability from an administration not easily able to jettison poorly performing teachers. Sanders can't possibly turn around the schools until he sets the bar higher for everyone.

Some are sure to point fingers at parents who aren't dedicated to education, and yes, they're part of the problem. But finger-pointing won't get Cleveland anywhere.

Sanders has shown that he can create some effective schools with firm leadership. Now he has to find the vision and the will to make not just a few schools work, but all of them