MARYBETH TALKS SENSE, AS USUAL:

What a lot of people seem to forget is that not every voter forms an opinion about the Cleveland schools from what is reported in the media. Many Clevelander's opinions are developed by what they observe in the community...

If the schools want to get community support, then they need to reach out to the community.

...If every school sent delegates to the neighborhood block clubs and business associations, and became proactive in opening communications, rather than waiting for volunteers to come to the school, it would be so much easier for the voting public to get to know all the good things that are going on in the individual buildings.

In politics, as in education, as in life, relationships are everything. If teachers in Cleveland public schools were the neighborhood leaders they could be, both the schools and the neighborhoods might work a lot better.

Go get em, MB.