Dobbs: A legacy in search of a president Dobbs over at CNN.com had some staggering statistics on the public school system in major urban areas. This quote alone should break our hearts.

The Education Week report shows Detroit's public high schools will graduate only 25 percent of their students. Cleveland, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland, will graduate less than 35 percent; Dallas, Texas, New York and Los Angeles, California, about 45 percent. In fact, 10 of our nation's biggest cities will graduate fewer than half their students. This is nothing less than a national crisis.

I am not sure that focus of the article is that great. Trying to motivate President Bush to make a legacy by tackling Detroit Public Schools seems slightly sensationalized. Certainly, the war in Iraq is what he will be remembered for regardless of what else he does, good or bad. CNN and Fox have already made that call Lou :)

Study: Region must face divisions There was a study, commissioned by the Presidents' Council, a group of 17 chief executives at black-owned businesses, which made recommendations to Cuyahoga County (the city of Cleveland and its suburbs). These recommendations "must go beyond government reform and tackle divisive issues such as housing and education." recommendations include:

• opening high-achieving suburban schools to Cleveland children
• expanding affordable housing and mass transit so that workers in Cleveland and inner-ring suburbs can get to jobs in communities at the edge of the county
• The study's authors frown on consolidating Cuyahoga County under one government but do not reject the idea. Instead, they recommend ways to offset damage inflicted on Cleveland and inner-ring suburbs by urban sprawl and racial and economic segregation.
• affluent suburbs abandon rules that block developers from building houses for lower-income families.

I hope the study is published because it would certainly be an interesting read. Unfortunately, many of these recommendations are a tough sell to those in the outter ring affluent suburbs. Perhaps some recommendations that reward outter ring suburbs for participating in urban renewal? Regionalism will always be a hot topic in Cleveland, and this article seems to show the direction those leadership want to take it.