By Denise Smith Amos
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Alton Frailey, superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools addresses attendees at the annual State of the Schools breakfast at the Cintas Center at Xavier University on Thursday morning. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

EVANSTON - Beginning in December, some 2,000 students in Cincinnati Public Schools will get after-school tutoring four days a week, two hours a day.

CPS will use $1.2 million in state and federal funds to pay teachers at 31 of the district's lowest-scoring grade schools to help students with reading, writing and math. It is one of several strategies Superintendent Alton Frailey announced Thursday in an attempt to pull the public school system out of "Academic Emergency" by concentrating on students who need help the most.

Frailey told an audience of about 250 teachers, administrators, community leaders and parents Thursday morning at the Cintas Center that he can't predict when CPS will lose its emergency designation, the lowest of five state report card ratings, but he's confident that changes like the tutoring program will ensure more students are learning.

"We have a lot of work to do and ingrained habits to address," he said. "I am confident that we are making strategic strides that should earn us a higher rating next time around."

Frailey urged the community, parents and teachers to raise their expectations for CPS students.

"We must take a significant percentage of our student population to a level they have never known or imagined for themselves," he said. "It is time for the entire community to come together on behalf of the children. It's time to ask, 'Who's for the kids and who's just kidding?' "

Frailey's State of the Schools speech marked the end of his first year leading the 40,347-student, public school system.

It had been a roller coaster ride, with the triumphant vote for the school bond levy in May tempered with the release of disappointing proficiency test scores, Frailey said.

Disappointing attendance figures in early September have given way to more encouraging data. Attendance is at 94 percent - above the state's 93-percent goal for schools.

Sue Taylor, head of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, said Frailey has inherited most of CPS' problems. For instance, he was criticized for low-attendance statistics, when in fact, he has been more open than previous superintendents about such data.

"Just being open about the statistics means that you're serious," she said.

Frailey described changes that will bring the decentralized school system to one set of curriculum standards. It will be based on basics covered in state-mandated tests.

Taylor said teachers have been waiting for such guidance for about 10 years.

Frailey said his critics need not fear that the standards will harm schools with distinct academic methods, such as Montessori or Paideia programs. But he bristled at claims that the highest-performing schools were serving all their students equally well.

Without identifying the schools, Frailey used proficiency test score data for two such schools to describe a large "achievement gap" among white students, African-American students and low-income students.

"High-performing schools, I've been told to leave alone,'' Frailey said. "Don't change anything. But is this acceptable?"

Frailey said CPS is investigating ways to keep more of its high school students from falling off track, including a plan to invite dropouts to return to school. The district needs to find a place for kids who need alternative forms of education, he said.

"We can't have 19-year-olds with two credits in a freshman class and expect them to hang around,'' he said. "I have a 12-year-old daughter. I don't want a 19-year-old in her class, with no hope for the future, trying to destroy hers."

A few parents said they agreed with most of Frailey's assessments, but they wanted to hear how CPS plans to engage parents more in the schools.

Adrian Walker, a Roselawn Condon parent and volunteer, said she has seen changes in her children's school in the past year: The school has launched Tuesday and Thursday tutoring, its kindergarten through third-grade teachers are "on the same page" with a linked reading program and her kids take more standardized tests.

But she's yet to see positive results from those changes.

"I want to see a lot of changes," she said. "Roselawn is one of those schools that never hits the target, as far as its goals. This is the second year of below-standard scores."

E-mail damos@enquirer.com