Ten years ago Wednesday, a committee of Cincinnati's most powerful businessmen released a scathing report of Cincinnati Public Schools' business practices.

        Schools officials — mired in bankruptcy and a lack of public trust — embraced many of the suggestions outlined in the report, which reverberates throughout the 42,000-student district.

        The legacy of the Buenger Commission report — named after Clement Buenger, then chairman of Fifth Third Bancorp, who died in March 2000 — survives throughout the administration and even in the hundreds of classrooms.

        “It created in Cincinnati a standard, a norm, a tradition that the business community rolls up its sleeves and gets involved,” said Lynn Marmer, Cincinnati Public Schools board member.

        Among its outcomes 10 years later:

        • CPS administration comprises less than 5 percent of the budget, slashed from around 13 percent when the report was released.

        • A district business executive with an economics background supervises the school system's business operations, such as transportation and food services, instead of an educator who moved up through the ranks.

        • Educators have a facility — the Mayerson Academy in Corryville — designed to improve their teaching and school management.

        • A partnership endures with Cincinnati's business community, including an arrangement this year with Cincinnati Bell to turn Taft High School into an information technology institute.

        The report — requested of the Cincinnati Business Committee by then-Superintendent Lee Etta Powell — did not attempt to directly delve into how teachers taught or students should learn. But some argue that the Buenger Commission helped streamline CPS' financial situation so the district could concentrate more fully on instructing students.

        While many many recommendations were embraced wholeheartedly, some were attempted and failed. For example, the district neglected creating a second-shift maintenance staff, which the commission suggested after more than $250,000 was spent on overtime in 1989. In fiscal year 2000-01, $250,327 was spent on overtime for facilities maintenance.

        Still, present and former school officials, educators and parents interviewed say fruits of the report will be felt for generations.

        “It was tough medicine but it had to be done,” said Brewster Rhoads, the district's levy campaign manager since 1991.

        A year before the Buenger commission's report, voters rejected a 7.21-mill, five-year operating levy.

        “The climate had been very negative,” Mr. Rhoads said. “The perception was the schools were excessively bureaucratic and that the district needed a radical shake-up.”

        Shake things up, it did.

        “The recommendations or the threat of a lot of the recommendations shook people to their core,” said former CPS superintendent J. Michael Brandt, who assumed that position a month before the document was released.

        CPS families believed the administration was excessively bureaucratic, Mr. Brandt said.

        “As a principal in the district, I knew that was true,” he said.

        The commission — which worked on the report for 18 months with 200 volunteers and a reported 10,000 man-hours — let the district know it meant business.

        Mr. Buenger on Oct. 31, 1991, warned school officials to heed the commission's suggestions. “I could become their worst nightmare,” he said.

        Shellshocked district officials drew in their breath and complied.

        Many cite the passage of a 9.83-mill emergency levy — raising $46 million a year for five years — two months after the report's release as the most important result.

        But there were those who questioned why and how a group of white, mostly older private-sector CEOs could offer suggestions to reform an urban public school district of mostly black students.

        “(It) was seen by many constituents as being quite paternalistic,” said Major McNeil, vice president of Pope & Associates, a Springdale firm that provides diversity training. “It was a blue-ribbon committee perceived to have been appointed by those who didn't generally put their children in the school district.”

        Yet overall, he said, the expertise was beneficial.

        Changes to CPS' administration were extensive.

        The report noted that CPS employed some 600 people in the central administrative office, $33 million in payroll, or 13 percent of the district's annual operating budget.

        “We cut 50 percent out of the box,” Mr. Brandt said.

        Today, CPS lists central administration at $18.7 million, or less than 5 percent of the budget.

        Some say the district cut too much.

        “I think we all missed having curriculum specialists,” said Mary Gladden, who just retired as Taft High School's principal. “They were experienced in a particular field and principals are not experienced in every field.”

        Some of those people are being rehired. “But we continue to keep as a premise to stay as lean at the central office as possible and put resources in schools,” CPS spokeswoman Jan Leslie said.

        CPS also embraced a Buenger report recommendation to have a person with business expertise supervise business operations, such as transportation, food service, facilities and maintenance instead of having an educator come up through the ranks.

        Improving the teaching profession was another key recommendation.

        The commission suggested developing a training laboratory to improve leadership and skills.

        One year later — 1992 — the Mayerson Academy opened as a facility to cultivate skills of principals, teachers and uncertified staff.

        “We continue to thrive and provide high-quality training and trainers for our participants,” said Dr. Jerry Boyle, executive director.

        Dr. Boyle said local school districts have logged 1 million hours in professional development for its participants.

        “They offer incredible speakers,” said special education teacher Bonnie Henry, who attended a training session on early childhood education last week.

        A recommendation by the Buenger Commission to upgrade school facilities is materializing piecemeal.

        “Cincinnati's school buildings are aging and decaying as a result of general disrepair and poor maintenance,” the commission said and recommended that $115 million be earmarked to repair buildings.

        A bond issue to raise $348 million for school upgrades, however, failed in 1993.

        The district is developing a plan to be released in December that could call for up to $1 billion in school construction or renovation..

        In the meantime, many students and teachers are making do with poor facilities.

        “When it's old and people have allergies, the dust and stuff aggravates allergies,” said Britny Wilford, a seventh-grader at 113-year-old Windsor Elementary, which the Ohio School Facilities Commission recommended be closed.

        Some would say the best thing to come out of the Buenger blueprint was the strong partnership with the business community, even if others say it went too far at times.

        For example, Cincinnati Bell this year partnered with the district to remake Taft High School into an information technology institute.

        “Here was the first time when CEOs to technical specialists saw first hand in CPS what they had been reading about,” said Jim Kiggen, a commission member and former chairman of Xtek Inc. “It was a watershed moment.”

        The report helped executives understand the challenges facing educators, he said.

        Tom Mooney, former president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, said the business community later became too involved in educational issues, such as spending thousands of dollars to have candidates affiliated with the CBC elected to the school board.

        Ron Roberts, the executive director of the CBC, was labeled as the “shadow superintendent” for what some believed to be excessive meddling.

        “But it's very, very important and very, very positive in any city for the business community to be involved in the public schools,” Mr. Mooney said.

        Some say that support — especially the expertise in helping streamline business practices — allowed educators to focus on student achievement.

        “It must be emphasized that the commission's examination did not extend into the classroom,” the report states. “Nevertheless, the recommendations contained in this report have a direct bearing on academic performance.”

        CPS' current superintendent, Steven Adamowski, frequently points to increases in standardized test scores.

        Last year, however, CPS was again rated in academic emergency by the state, based on overall proficiency tests scores and graduation and attendance rates. About half of CPS' freshmen graduate.

        The district is undergoing a dramatic reform effort in its five neighborhood high schools that officials say hasn't been seen since the oldest of those was built in 1919.

        “The Buenger Commission set the foundation for the structural and educational reforms we have been able to implement,” Mr. Adamowski said.

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