There are a variety of ways to measure a school system's success. One common device is a report card that provides benchmarks of academic achievement and long-term progress of a district's students. That's the same gauge used by parents to determine how a child is progressing in school. By that standard, careful perusal of the state's just released annual Report Card for Hamilton County Schools is cause for concern about the progress being made by students here.

The overall picture appears to be one of decline, though there are, thankfully, a few bright spots that should counter that notion. The annual report indicates that math and reading scores in elementary and middle schools declined by 1 percentage point each from 2008 to 2009. The school district's graduation rate fell for the third year in a row. The 2009 rate was 70.9 percent. It was 75.1 percent in 2007. That's hardly an encouraging portrait.

Overall, in K-8 achievement, the county's students earned straight Cs. Last year, students at the same level earned a mixture of As, Bs and Cs. Local and state officials correctly point out that changes in the testing baseline this year make it difficult to accurately compare the 2009 grades with those awarded last year. Nevertheless, the state's report card is disheartening.

The declining test scores, falling graduation rate and Cs across the board suggest an unwelcome mediocrity rather than the incremental progress parents and taxpayers rightfully expect. Officials acknowledge the problem and the need for improvement. Schools Superintendent Jim Scales was clearly referring to the report card when he told Hamilton County Commissioners on Wednesday that "We own this. I own this. But what we own is a system that has not failed."

That, of course, is true. In the strictest sense, the overall system has not failed. While several schools earned Fs across the board, others had all As. The report indicates, too, that writing scores remained strong and that scores in math and reading for high school students rose. Those are hardly signs of an overall failure. Indeed, they suggest that in some areas the county's schools are moving in a positive direction.

Even so, the school system and its administrators are sure to be blamed for both perceived and real failures in the wake of the state report. That's unfair. The shortfalls in scores and other measures of progress are as much or more a reflection of broad societal and community problems as they are a product of educational policies and practices.

Far too many students arrive at public pre-kindergarten and kindergarten here lacking the necessary literacy and social skills to do the work required of them. Most come from an environment where education is not always cherished, where books and the reading of them are not always a priority and where television and other trivial pursuits replace the personal interactions and enriched learning experiences necessary to prepare youngsters for immersion in school. The deficits caused by those lifestyle patterns are difficult to overcome in any circumstance. Assigning schools all the blame for failing to do so is simply unjust

The school system here, in fact, has worked diligently to address societal issues that directly impact the education process. It has partnered with public and private entities, including institutions like the Benwood, Lyndhurst, Osborne and Public Education foundations and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to develop innovative programs and to attract and retain skilled teachers. Many of the schools where those projects have been implemented continue to demonstrate remarkable and consistent gains in academic progress in student population groups that long defied almost every pedagogic, community and social effort to improve learning skills and achievement.

Indeed, those who were quick this week to use the new report card to prove bogus claims that current administrators have failed to improve scores and schools conveniently ignore such progress and the external issues that can make educating many of today's youngsters so difficult. Their partisanship is as disingenuous and as it is counterproductive.

The overall success or failure of the school system here is tied as much to parental involvement, community interest and stable funding as it is to classroom instruction and school administration. The state grades certainly indicate deficiencies in Hamilton County schools that should be corrected as promptly as possible, but the current report card is not a final verdict.

It is, rather, an interim evaluation and a call to the community to unite in common cause to replicate successful programs and to build new ones. Support for that on-going effort is vital to improve academic achievement, graduation rates and overall progress in the county's schools.