School board's test

Unlike the 26,000 students in its charge, the Toledo Board of Education doesn't get the summer off. Board members must hire a schools superintendent to replace John Foley, who leaves in three weeks. The withdrawal late last week of one of the two finalists makes it likely that the other will get the job this week.

Having slashed the school district budget by more than 10 percent last month to achieve a precarious last-minute balance, board members immediately must begin to address an even larger projected deficit in this school year's budget. They appear ready, as early as their meeting on Tuesday, to try to sell a big property tax hike in November to voters who rejected the district's income tax proposal in May by nearly 2 to 1.

Before it can do any of these difficult things, the board must answer two basic questions it has been chronically loath to engage: Who really runs Toledo Public Schools? And whom does the district primarily serve - its students or its best-paid employees?

The next TPS superintendent is expected to be Jerome Pecko, the retired chief of a school district in suburban Akron. Terms of his contract, both compensation and specific performance criteria, remain to be completed. But the challenges he will inherit are clear.

TPS probably will face fiscal hardship for years. The district can expect further cuts in state aid as the General Assembly and governor confront their own huge budget deficit. Local property tax collections remain depressed. Federal stimulus aid is going away.

So the new superintendent likely will have to stand up to school union leaders not only on contractual matters of pay and benefits, but also on such hot buttons as seniority, tenure, merit pay, and work rules. He will need the resolute support of the school board to wage such battles.

Will he get it? In recent years the board and district executives have preferred reaching accommodations that bought labor peace, albeit at a dear price. Rather than make a serious effort this year to win painful but necessary economic concessions from unions, district executives and board members acquiesced in minuscule givebacks. Instead, they laid off nearly 400 district employees and eliminated one of every 10 teaching positions.

These personnel cuts will mean larger classes when schools reopen. The board has approved other spending slashes that directly affect students, notably big reductions in transportation and school sports.

Every cut that weakens the quality of education TPS offers provides a greater incentive for parents and students to flee the district for charter schools or other options. And because a student who leaves TPS takes roughly $5,800 a year in state aid with him or her, the downward spiral continues.

Even after money questions are resolved, the superintendent will face a tough challenge in boosting achievement and graduation rates, especially among disadvantaged students. The board must ensure that the district operates its schools to reflect that priority, not bureaucratic convenience or obsolete contract restrictions.

TPS taxpayers, as well as business and civil rights groups, have made clear they won't pay more for the same old results. Many private-sector workers who have made big sacrifices during the recession to keep their jobs, or have lost their jobs, aren't willing to pay more to prop up an ossified public-sector bureaucracy. They weren't in May. They won't be in November.

The questions remain: Who controls Toledo's public schools? And to whose benefit? More than revealing the identity of the superintendent or the details of the tax proposal, the school board needs to answer these questions in a way that parents and taxpayers will give a passing grade.