by Kevin Niedermier
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is slowly improving, but not fast enough. That’s the main finding of a report released this week by the Cleveland Transformation Alliance, the group monitoring the school system’s sweeping 2012 overhaul plan.
To help speed progress the report recommends improving attraction and retention of quality administrators and teachers, and more efforts aimed at low-preforming or failing schools. Executive director of the Transformation Alliance, Piet van Lier, says one of the bright spots the is graduation the rate increasing by two-percent.
“The four year graduation rate is now at 66 percent. That’s really significant, that means a lot, that means a lot more students are finishing school in four years,” says Van Lier.
The goal is a 71-percent graduation rate next year. When the transformation plan began in 20-12 the rate was 56-percent. Van Lier says college readiness is also inching up. And he stresses the importance of passing a levy renewal this November to keep the momentum moving.