By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati Public School district is considering spending $800,000 to make instructional content consistent in every school and to ensure that what kids are learning matches up with state and federal standards.

There's no consistency in what kids are learning now, Superintendent Alton Frailey said Wednesday when he proposed the district's 2003-04 operating budget.

In a district where students often move from school to school, a new districtwide curriculum would help ensure that students don't have gaps in instruction, he said.

Frailey said teachers would still have the freedom to be creative in how they teach, but the curriculum could provide a guide for what students must learn at specific points for every grade level.

The district also wants to spend more than $1 million this year strengthening ways to assess students' progress, including creating high school common exams to test whether students have mastered their coursework.

Frailey presented the $436.4 million budget to the public at a special hearing.

Though the hearing was for the public, just three people turned out.

They were outnumbered nearly 8-to-1 by district staff and school board members.

Frailey tried to drive home the message that he wants to run the district better, faster and cheaper.

As part of that, the budget is $700,000 less than last year's.

Frailey said he turned down more than $11 million in new monetary requests from staff.

"We're going to have to continue to look at ways to improve operations and yet still continue to cut costs," he said.

The school board is expected to vote on the budget Aug. 11.

To see a copy of the proposed budget, go to www.cps-k12.org and look under the "What's New" section.

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com