Ohio got a new superintendent of schools last week when the state Board of Education voted to hire Deborah Delisle. We do not envy her. Delisle faces a Herculean task - nothing less than rebuilding the Buckeye State's system of public education.

She will have help in that. Gov. Ted Strickland, who forced Delisle's predecessor, Susan Zelman, out, has made education reform one of his top priorities. Many legislators recognize the need for major improvements.

Unfortunately, that is where agreement stops. The state's school funding formula, for example, has been controversial for decades. State officials have yet to get it right.

Big city school districts often are travesties, doing little more than warehouse a huge percentage of their students for a few years, before sending them out in the world without the skills they need to succeed.

And as we have noted repeatedly, the state's system of school districts - more than 500 of them - is a road block against reform. Consolidation would do wonders for the quality of education - and to make limited financial resources go further.

Delisle, 55, has been superintendent of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District. It is not a particularly high-performing district - but state board members seem confident in Delisle's leadership skills and dedication to improvement.

That's good - but Delisle still has to prove herself in the state's top public education job. She will not be able to do that without help from Strickland, legislators and educators at the local level. Unless they form a team determined to bring real reform to public schools, it will not happen in Ohio.

That would be a terrible thing to do to the Buckeye State's young people. Too many of their schools have been failing them for decades. Some have never attended a truly good school. That needs to change.