[5] In 2005 and in years following, the system faced large budget shortfalls and repeated possibility of slipping back into "academic emergency" as rated by the Ohio Department of Education.

[10] CMSD is the only district in Ohio that is under direct control of the mayor, who appoints a school board.

In response to declining enrollment over more than a decade and the corresponding growth in charter schools in the city, the District took several steps to improve academic performance and increase graduation rates.

House Bill 525 was then created and passed with a bipartisan vote of 27-4, to support the districts most aggressive reform strategies in history.

[14] Working closely with Mayor Frank G. Jackson and a coalition of concerned citizens throughout the city, Link and Gordon additionally led the district to passage of CMSD's first operating levy, Issue 107, in 16 years in November, 2012.

In 2016, Eric Gordon won the "Urban Educator of the Year Award from the Council of Great City Schools.

After World War II, middle-class jobs and families migrated to the suburbs leaving behind predominantly low-income student enrollment in the Cleveland Public School system.

[citation needed] The administrative and operational expense of complying with mandatory busing and other federal court orders caused a dramatic increase in overhead expenditures per student, while declining tax revenues resulted in lower expenditures on actually educating public school students.

In March 1994, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Cleveland Chapter, Reed vs. Rhodes plaintiff, challenged the fairness of the Ohio 9th grade proficiency test as an Ohio secondary school graduation requirement for African-American students;[23] the subsequent federal court settlement agreement(s) left the 9th grade secondary school graduation requirement intact and unchanged in 1994 and subsequently.

[22] Although mandatory busing ended in the 1990s, Cleveland continued to slide into poverty, reaching a nadir in 2004 when it was named the poorest major city in the United States.

"Repurpose schools," which face staff changes or conversion to charters to give them a jolt.

The remaining schools will close, with students transferred to neighboring facilities unless they take advantage of citywide open enrollment.

[29] In February 2009 the school board voted in favor of a rule stating that high schoolers need to wear uniforms.

[30] In early 2009, Ohio Department of Education announced its new high school graduation requirements that would take effect starting with students entering ninth grade in 2010 (Class of 2014).

Under these requirements, students must take an additional year of mathematics, more business/ career tech class and fewer electives.