Incoming superintendent Alton Frailey should immediately reach out to potential partners both inside and outside Cincinnati Public Schools and continue the district's reforms, business leaders said Friday.

        Mr. Frailey has a track record in Houston as an effective evangelist for the schools. He would need to continue that here, executives say.

        “You don't stop a change process,” said Frisch's Restaurants chief executive officer Craig Maier, co-chairman of the Cincinnati Business Committee schools task force. “You have to continually move forward, or you move backward.”

        Local corporate executives have played a key role in Cincinnati schools' reform efforts for more than a decade.

        Under former superintendent Steven Adamowski,efforts have included Cincinnati Bell's sponsorship of the Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School in the West End.

        Even beyond the impact a new superintendent would have on the school system, business leaders say Mr. Frailey's leadership could play an important role in the region's economy.

        As Ohio's third-largest district, CPS plays a central role in producing workers for local employers. The success or failure of the 42,000-student district also affects how many people stay in the city or move to the suburbs.

        “The quality of the community is reflected in the schools, and the quality of the schools is reflected in the community,” Mr. Maier said.

        The hiring of Mr. Frailey was a sharp contrast to the hiring of his predecessor.

        The business committee, an elite group of two dozen chief executives that has often been accused of controlling the school district, gave wide support to Mr. Adamowski, who made a priority of attracting investment and partnerships with local companies.

        The group found out about the decision to hire Mr. Frailey on Friday afternoon only hours before Mr. Frailey was officially introduced. While some of its members had talked to the recruiter who worked with the school district, none had met Mr. Frailey.

        Jack Cassidy, president of Cincinnati Bell and a key driver of the Taft High School project, said Mr. Frailey's first task should be to “assess his own bench strength” and the corporate partnerships that already exist. At Taft, for example, Bell helped wire the entire school with computer equipment, and its employees donated thousands of hours to tutor students and work on the building.

        Priorities should be continuing to decentralize the district, giving more autonomy to principals and breaking up the central-office bureaucracy, Mr. Cassidy said. “It can get better, if that's the general area he wants to go to,” Mr. Cassidy said. “It may be he doesn't want to do that.”

        It's clear that Mr. Frailey left his mark with Houston's business community. Janet Juban, administrator of partnerships and volunteering programs at Spring Branch Independent School District, where Mr. Frailey has been an assistant superintendent, called him an “absolutely marvelous spokesman” for the district.

        Spring Branch has dozens of partnerships with local companies, parents, churches and other civic groups, as well as a strong private foundation, she said.

        Johnathan Holifield, executive director of CincyTech USA, the technology program of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, called partnerships with business the new model for how to operate an urban school district. He envisioned a partnership extending beyond Taft High School and Electronic Data Systems' efforts at Western Hills High School.

        “What I'd like to see is a similar kind of partnership in the science area,” he said. “What urban school districts have found out is that education in the U.S. is ... a community responsibility.”

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