News and Information from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District

But we can no longer ask any students to wait for their turn for school reform to reach them. The world around them is changing too rapidly for many of them to ever catch up.

Who among us could have predicted that, in the last five years, we would witness such a boom in digital, mobile technology, the near collapse of the American economic system and the inauguration of an African American President of the United States?

In preparing our students for the rapidly-changing world that awaits them, it becomes more apparent with every decade that the tools students need to succeed and to survive in the 21st century are far different than those we provided to students during the last century and remarkably different from even the education we have provided in the last decade.

It is likely that none of us envisioned the extent to which our own lives would change in just a few years with the arrival of I-pods, MP3s, digital photography, Blackberries, social media and advancements in telecommunications that now connect us to the world, its organizations and its people in unprecedented ways.

We must move aggressively forward to prepare our students for these advancements and those on the immediate horizon.

School administrators and teachers have debated for years about how to best prepare students for 21st century jobs, but what we are facing year after year is the rapidity and unpredictability of workplace and workforce changes.

Each new technological innovation demands an equal and appropriate educational innovation.

WE MUST DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO CHANGE THE CULTURE OF EVERY SCHOOL IN CLEVELAND

With the announcement of the CMSD Transformation Plan, I pledged to do "Whatever It Takes" to ensure that none of our students will attend schools that remain in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency status while other students prepare for their futures in Effective and Excellent learning academies with flexible, performance-oriented cultures.

I made a promise to every family in Cleveland that none of their children would learn in outdated schools, rooted in 20th century classroom models, while charter schools and specialty schools provide other children with hands-on experiences in vibrant, 21st century learning communities.

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On January 5, 2010, I did more than present a new "wish list" for students, for their families and for the future of Cleveland Schools. I did more than promise to fix 10 schools and update 10 others. Instead, I issued a declaration to the entire school community that the outdated 20^th century policies and practices that continue to send 46% of our kids to the streets without high school diplomas in their hands are no longer tolerable and no longer reparable--they must be replaced.

While we talk of one change, in one school, 10 more changes are taking place in the world around that awaits the participation of our students.

In proposing the CMSD Transformation Plan, I have pledged to first transform our entire central office operation to realign our staff and move full speed ahead with one purpose: to turn vision into victory, to turn goals into accomplishments and to complete the mission we began when we first set foot on our Path to Premier.

We must do whatever it takes to transform our schools now.

THE CMSD TRANSFORMATION PLAN

The complete CMSD Transformation Plan, available for viewing and for downloading on the home page of our District website, proposes to divide our schools into four main categories of school-by-school transformation: Growth Schools, Refocus Schools, Repurpose Schools and Close Schools.

The Strategic Development Initiative that resulted in development of the plan was a comprehensive process involving three foundation-funded assessments of CMDS's specialty programs, turn-around strategies and facilities. The final Transformation Plan is based not only on staff and community input, but also on objective, data-based research.

Community forums held at schools throughout the city have played a vital role in gathering input for school-by-school recommendations.

Input from a Community Advisory Committee comprised of parents, educators, community leaders and public officials was helpful to independent consultants who made the final recommendations and assisted in developing the plan. Three external audits were conducted to take a hard look at where Cleveland's schools are today and to determine what we must do now to address disparities in the quality of education we deliver.

The Council of Great City Schools audited our specialty programs, Education First reviewed our turnaround strategies and the Boston Consulting Group studied our use of school facilities.

We owe a significant debt of gratitude to Ronn Richard and the Cleveland Foundation, and also to David Abbott and the George Gund Foundation, for funding this critical strategic development initiative.

The integrated process involved some of the nation's best consultants who conducted an objective, fact-based analysis of where Cleveland Schools are today and identified "pockets of success" on which we can build for the future of all of our schools.

Acting on these critical recommendations is a matter of life and death for too many of our students. We can no longer take the time we have taken the last three years to delay and debate our course of action. The path is clear. We must act on these recommendations now and do "whatever it takes" to ensure the success of all students.

GOALS OF THE CMSD TRANSFORMATION PLAN

The Transformation Plan is now, and will ultimately prove to be, less about the schools that we must close in Cleveland, and more about the doors we must open for the children who attend our schools.

We have pledged to do whatever it takes to provide, not just some of our students, but all of them with the knowledge and skills they need now to reach their potential with the following transformation goals:

We will graduate all students ready to compete in the 21st Century.
We will provide high quality schools in every neighborhood so that all families have choices.
We will hold everyone accountable for success-teachers and principals, central office staff, parents and students, and community.
We will recruit, support and retain high-quality principals and teachers.
We will expand what is working today and be bold in rethinking and changing what is not working.
We will attract and retain students and families in Cleveland.
We will right-size the District by eliminating excess capacity, addressing overcrowding and ensuring effective use of resources.

By the 2014-2015 school year, the Cleveland community should expect every school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to be rated Continuous Improvement or above and 50% of Cleveland's schools to be rated Excellent or Effective on the Ohio report card.

We will do "Whatever It Takes" to make it happen.

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CREATING EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS

The key ingredients of an effective school are well known and documented. Cleveland, like all other cities throughout the nation, has examples of successful PreK-8 schools and high schools, and we have schools that are doing much better than other urban schools in the state and nation.

We have learned through our own successful innovative practices that students learn best in small, safe and personalized schools.

Students learn better when staff members and school leaders have high expectations for them and provide a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum that incorporates technology and critical thinking skills.

We know that family involvement in a student's education is one of the most important ingredients for student success.

At its core, the CMSD transformation includes a school-by-school plan to improve academic performance in every one of these critical areas.

THE ROLE OF CHARTER SCHOOL COLLABORATION IN REFORM

As part of the proposed Transformation Plan, I have called on the District to actively engage with successful charter schools both here in Cleveland and throughout the nation.

With approval of the Transformation Plan by the Cleveland Board of Education next month, we will move immediately to seek charter school partners for two critical opportunities:

To offer one of our existing schools for charter with a request to join our organization as an academy within one of our existing schools. We refer to this as the "blended model."
To offer vacated school buildings to charter schools for their operation and management, providing increased school choice in our neighborhoods.

As we move forward, we will also explore opportunities for national charter organizations to manage low-performing schools in the District.

Real change--transformative change--the kind of change that means life or death for many of Cleveland's children--will require a shared commitment by everyone in the Cleveland community to increased accountability, to increased choice and competition and to honest and meaningful self-assessment as we turn our schools into the 21^st Century learning centers they must become for our students.

We must do "Whatever it Takes" to make it happen.

Public schools, more than any other modern organization, have long been viewed by the public as being resistant to change. But thre is, in fact, so much change occurring in schools that leading school reformers say teachers and school administrators are overwhelmed by it.

What's missing in our ever-changing public schools, however, is what is at the heart of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Transformation Plan--accountability.

School change doesn't mean anything to a child, to his parents, to his teachers, to his school or his community, unless it is accompanied by clear improvements in student performance. Our schools will forever see their share of change, but we must commit ourselves to no longer being what too many urban school districts find themselves to be--"change inept."

It is one thing to change our direction; it is quite another to change ourselves.

From top to bottom, we have pledged to change the way we operate in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Even more, we have committed ourselves to having something extraordinary to show for our school reform efforts--the success of each and every child in Cleveland.

"Whatever it takes!"