Getting a good education has more to do with money than it has to do with race, blacks and whites say in a new Enquirer poll.

        Suburbanites of both races are happier with their schools than city residents are with theirs.

        And a majority of blacks and whites say rich school districts should help pay to educate children in poor districts.

ONLINE EXTRA

• Complete poll results and PDF of the report

MORE COVERAGE

• About this series   • Tell us what you think   • Emphasis on school leads a black family to Mason   • No single medicine can cure schools' ills   • How this poll was done

        The Enquirer poll is the first comprehensive survey of racial attitudes in the metropolitan area since April's riots. The survey was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which surveyed 1,112 Greater Cincinnati adults by phone Aug. 17-23.

        On many critical education matters, blacks and whites agree.

        Both races rank education as a top issue in their communities, and roughly half of each has confidence that public schools are doing a good job.

        Eight of 10 whites and nine of 10 blacks say children develop better when they attend school with kids of another race.

        And majorities of both races say proficiency tests are good tools for ensuring that every child gets a good education.

        But in interviews with residents and education experts, money matters almost always enter in.

        ''I hate to say it, but if I had the money to leave, I would,'' says Monique Hunter, 38, an African-American single mother from Over-the-Rhine. She sends her two daughters to Washington Park Elementary, a Cincinnati public school near the site of violent unrest this spring.

        ''There are a lot of people who are dissatisfied in this neighborhood,'' she says, ''especially when they see what people at other schools in the district or at other districts get.''

        Who's to blame?

        No one is precisely sure why Cincinnati schools perform so poorly, posting low test scores and graduation rates.

        Half of all blacks and 40 percent of all whites say ''reasons are many and complex and include lack of support structure and resources of many urban households,'' according to the Enquirer poll.

        Yet a sizable number of whites -- four in 10 -- also blame a lack of parental involvement. Two in 10 blacks agree.

        ''It's all about the way you raise your kids,'' says poll respondent Kathleen Murr, a white 64-year-old from Morning View in Kenton County, who put four kids through the public school system there.

        ''That's where it starts and where it ends,'' she says. ''A lot of the reason some of these schools are so poor is the parents. It's not just black or white. There are a lot of low-class people out there who don't want any better for themselves or their children.''

        At Washington Park Elementary in Over-the-Rhine, about 50 percent of parents attend parent-teacher conferences concerning their children's learning, says Vicky Antoine, the school's parent center coordinator.

        ''There is a suspicion of the system, because so many dropped out or never took advantage of the education opportunities they had,'' Ms. Antoine says. ''Yet it kind of hurts to hear that whites think it's the parents, because they don't know what we have to deal with down here.''

        Dr. Terrence Poole, a 42-year-old African-American dentist from Amberley Village, has a daughter in Cincinnati's Kilgour Elementary and a son at private Cincinnati Country Day.

        He says black parents probably could do a better job helping out in school and coaching their kids with homework. But problems in urban schools go way beyond what parents can do alone, he says.

        In the Enquirer poll, two in 10 blacks say lack of funding contributes to problems, too.

        ''It's economics; it's funding; it's schools that are falling down,'' Dr. Poole says. ''Parental involvement is only one aspect of it.''

        Who pays for what?

        Inequities between rich schools and poor schools have long been debated. As early as this week, the Ohio Supreme Court could rule in a 10-year-old case over whether the state should send more money to poor districts than rich districts.

        In the Enquirer poll, majorities of both blacks and whites say state government should take from the rich and give to the poor.

        But agreement is much stronger among blacks, and one of every three whites disagrees.

        For Sherri Holzman, a white mother of three in Deerfield Township, the issue comes down to being rewarded for working hard and being able to live in a good school district.

        Those rewards, she says, shouldn't be taken away.

        ''This is why we try, why we work harder, to live in this area to have our kids go to good schools,'' says Mrs. Holzman, 39, whose kids are in Warren County's highly regarded Kings Local School District.

        ''Why do that if it doesn't make any difference and we don't reap the benefits?''

        Robert Embry, an African-American father of two Princeton City Schools students, says poor districts need more money just to catch up. Children shouldn't be penalized in education because some districts aren't as rich as others, he says.

        ''You look at other kids in other school districts, and they're further along,'' he says.

        But Mr. Embry is encouraged by the poll's finding that most whites say wealthy districts should help poor districts. Educational parity would improve opportunities for kids throughout the region, he says.

        ''The old saying goes, 'The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer,' '' says Mr. Embry, 56, who works at the Ford plant in Sharonville. ''But I would like to see it get better, and this makes me think things will get better.''

        Money equals satisfaction

        In many ways, attitudes about education are shaped by where people live and how much money they make, the Enquirer poll and interviews show.

        For instance, only 39 percent of city blacks, compared with 53 percent of suburban blacks, think their public schools are adequately preparing kids for college or a well-paying job. The attitudes of suburban whites exactly mirror those of suburban blacks.

        No one argues the connection between money and education. Suburban Cincinnati adults earn $27,520 per capita a year, and 77 percent have high school diplomas. City residents earn $23,622 per capita a year, and 60 percent are high school grads, according to MapInfo Corp., a Troy, N.Y.-based market information firm.

        Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Steven Adamowski and others continue to hold out hope that education can provide a way out for less-advantaged kids.

        ''There are always going to be those who can't leave the city and have no other option than public school, and for the true low-income family, education remains the main way out,'' Dr. Adamowski says. ''That is the promise of America, and why we exist.''

        Cincinnati schools are nearly 71 percent black, compared to less than 10 percent for most high-performing, suburban schools. And even though Cincinnati schools rank highest among Ohio's eight urban districts, half of the 21,112 white, school-age children in Cincinnati's drawing area attended private or parochial schools last year.

        Many blacks feel that the education system is broken, at least in the inner city where most blacks live. And some say the only way to fix it is to escape it.

        ''We moved from Cincinnati for many reasons, primarily to be closer to family, but a big one was because of the schools,'' says Ramona Malone, an African-American insurance adjuster who lives in Newport.

        ''All of my sisters have taken their kids out of (Cincinnati schools) and either moved over here or found a way to get them into parochial school,'' says Ms. Malone, who has three kids in Newport Independent Schools and another at Northern Kentucky University.

        ''And that's the view for a lot of us who care about education -- get out and find something better.''

        Cincinnati Business Committee Vice Chairman Phil Cox, an African-American who moved his family out of Kennedy Heights to Lebanon in 1976 and is president of Cox Financial Corp., says providing educational opportunity is only a part of the equation.

        ''The societal challenge remains showing those kids who take the chance and put in the hard work that they won't have doors slammed in their face when they get done,'' says Mr. Cox, who put his kids in private school.

        ''If that happens, all you have is a bunch of frustrated, highly educated people. And when a kid has the choice between selling an illegal substance and making a ton of money, or working hard in school for nothing, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out how that's going to go.''

ONLINE EXTRA: Complete poll results and PDF of the report

Schools: It's the color of money
About this series
Emphasis on school leads a black family to Mason
No single medicine can cure schools' ills
How this poll was done
Tell us what you think