Commentary On Cleveland NAACP's Support Of Cleveland's Public Schools Reform Plan To The Detriment Of Black Children And Black Administrators
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes
Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson
Cleveland Public Schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders
Posted Friday, January 15, 2010
(Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly. Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
The Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP has endorsed the Cleveland schools reform plan that targets 16 schools on Cleveland's predominantly Black East side of town for closings in June while only two schools are slated to close on the majority White West side of the largely Black major metropolitan city.
According to an article published today, NAACP president George Forbes told the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that the Civil Rights organization that he leads endorses the sweeping transformation plan unleashed last month by Cleveland schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders because state education officials have placed three-fourths of the schools in academic watch. Among those slated to close are the East side high schools of South and East, A. B. Hart Middle School and Forest Hill Parkway Elementary.
Instead of endorsing this unconstitutional transformation plan the NAACP should be suing the State of Ohio and the Ohio State Legislature on behalf of Black children and their families for putting the schools where poor Black children of Cleveland attend in academic watch while the state legislature will not comply with numerous orders of the Ohio Supreme Court to revise the state's current system of funding public education through property taxes. Can our children really compete collectively where due to property tax limitations Cleveland schools spend half as much monies per student annually in comparison to the Perry Local School District with its nearby nuclear power plant, and far less than the Beachwood and Shaker Heights School Districts? Yes, I said that school districts like Perry spend double to the tune of more than $16 thousand per kid, which means more monies for instruction, after school tutoring and resources like laptop computers to district children.
If the NAACP won't stand up Black Cleveland schools parents should hire an honest and competent lawyer on behalf of their children to file a class action suit under the Ohio Constitution, which requires that the state legislature provide all children in Ohio with access to a thorough and efficient public education, as well as a 1983 claim regarding a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The suit under the Ohio Constitution should allege, among other issues, that poor and Black children of Cleveland's public schools are being denied access to a thorough and efficient education via a schools funding formula that gives more monies to rich White children while penalizing Black and poor children for not performing at the same levels on standardized test and otherwise. As to the Equal Protection Clause Black children are members of a protected class and they have a legal right to equal protection under the law via the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Also, the predominantly Black central office administrators should file a class action lawsuit too, and also under the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution where, like central office administrators in each and every public school district in Ohio, they must, via state law, have contracts that can be non-renewed but not typically terminated except under Title 33 of the Ohio Revised Code for disrespect for authority, gross immorality, or incompetence.
When the mayoral control law was enacted more than a decade ago a clause that allowed these central administrators to work at will was added, though illegal. Sanders, upon being hired CEO, brought in and recommended for hire otherwise, a predominantly White team of the highest paid administrators under him, one of which is now criminally accused of stealing thousands of school district dollars. He and the arrogant and insensitive Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, now in control of the schools, have said these central office administrators must work at will and with the expectation day by day of possibly being fired, regardless of performance. Why is this necessary other than for the arbitrary and capricious abuse of power by these insecure men of sorts.
Why not have Jackson and Sanders under the stress of working day by day with families to support and under the threat of termination if one merely looks the wrong way? (Note: Cleveland schools principals must, by state law, have contracts and if a particular principal's contract is not up for non- renewal in June when the 18 slated schools are to be closed they must be replaced with those whose contracts are up for non renewal, unless they are legally terminated. Also, non-renewal notices must be legally sent by March of this year to be effective. The media probably want tell you that under the mayoral control law principals must have contracts since a clause was not illegally inserted to disenfranchise these predominantly Black administrators like the ones at central office. I bet Jackson and Sanders plan to try something slick in this situation too, and with the help of certain media and certain Black leaders of the community).
I guess since I won't be quiet on issues of public concern relative to Blacks and children of Cleveland the seemingly corrupt Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough will direct another jury to illegally convict me of resisting arrest without an accusation of record or any testimony from sole White male arresting peace officer Gerald Pace, and then issue an illegal warrant unless I appear to be jailed per the directive of Jackson and his appointed and incompetent law director Robert Triozzi, who brought the illegal and retaliatory criminal charges for Jackson on behalf of the city of Cleveland. And if I sue Judge Keough as a last resort seeking only compliance with the law, the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct, the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility and the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure she will probably hire Triozzi again to represent her. And this activity will proceed without anybody speaking out on the conflict of interest as to a corrupt White male law director like Triozzi, whose legal advice has run the city and its schools into a more than $75 million dept, representing the judge in a case where he brought malicious criminal charges against a Black journalist and activist on behalf of a Black city led by a Black mayor.
Prior to Jackson's wrath I was jailed in the county in August 2008, threatened over my investigations and articles in the Call and Post Newspaper, given a knockout drug and held naked in a jail cell. I was then supervised by a disgruntled male employee and released four days later without charges. Instead of being upset about this, Jackson had me prosecuted by the city of Cleveland and then called the Call and Post, via Press Secretary Andrea Taylor, to ask if officials there would quiet me while I was maliciously prosecuted for nothing other than free speech issues, though to no avail. Judge Keough was arbitrarily assigned to the case and she has harassed me at every turn, even via harassing phone calls from her subordinates at my home, not to mention a threat via email on her behalf by Richard D. Jones, the Cleveland representative for the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network
I hope Black people vote Keough out of office next year and we are still waiting for a wealth of Black leaders and others to stand with strong Black Cleveland City Councilmen Jeffrey Johnson and T.J. Dow on behalf of Cleveland's school children and the predominantly Black administrators, some of whom sweat day and night to enhance educational outcomes for the famously corrupt Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Johnson, Dow, Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell and a few others seem to be among a dearth of Black leaders with guts to speak up for Cleveland's school children. I have been jailed repeatedly and threatened to be quiet, yet I am still speaking out. What will Mayor Jackson and slick Triozzi do next to seek to quiet a Black journalist who speaks the truth? Who will call that smelly attorney of mine in the Keough case named Wayne Kerek to ask that he again beg for a ride home out near Parma, Oh. where Blacks dare to go, and then get his police friends from Middleburg Heights to drive him home and illegally arrest me for alleged lane changing while he is behind the driver's seat with an expired driver's license ? Are you listening to me FBI? If so, please step in.
Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes
Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson
Cleveland Public Schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders
Posted Friday, January 15, 2010
(Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly. Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
The Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP has endorsed the Cleveland schools reform plan that targets 16 schools on Cleveland's predominantly Black East side of town for closings in June while only two schools are slated to close on the majority White West side of the largely Black major metropolitan city.
According to an article published today, NAACP president George Forbes told the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that the Civil Rights organization that he leads endorses the sweeping transformation plan unleashed last month by Cleveland schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders because state education officials have placed three-fourths of the schools in academic watch. Among those slated to close are the East side high schools of South and East, A. B. Hart Middle School and Forest Hill Parkway Elementary.
Instead of endorsing this unconstitutional transformation plan the NAACP should be suing the State of Ohio and the Ohio State Legislature on behalf of Black children and their families for putting the schools where poor Black children of Cleveland attend in academic watch while the state legislature will not comply with numerous orders of the Ohio Supreme Court to revise the state's current system of funding public education through property taxes. Can our children really compete collectively where due to property tax limitations Cleveland schools spend half as much monies per student annually in comparison to the Perry Local School District with its nearby nuclear power plant, and far less than the Beachwood and Shaker Heights School Districts? Yes, I said that school districts like Perry spend double to the tune of more than $16 thousand per kid, which means more monies for instruction, after school tutoring and resources like laptop computers to district children.
If the NAACP won't stand up Black Cleveland schools parents should hire an honest and competent lawyer on behalf of their children to file a class action suit under the Ohio Constitution, which requires that the state legislature provide all children in Ohio with access to a thorough and efficient public education, as well as a 1983 claim regarding a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The suit under the Ohio Constitution should allege, among other issues, that poor and Black children of Cleveland's public schools are being denied access to a thorough and efficient education via a schools funding formula that gives more monies to rich White children while penalizing Black and poor children for not performing at the same levels on standardized test and otherwise. As to the Equal Protection Clause Black children are members of a protected class and they have a legal right to equal protection under the law via the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Also, the predominantly Black central office administrators should file a class action lawsuit too, and also under the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution where, like central office administrators in each and every public school district in Ohio, they must, via state law, have contracts that can be non-renewed but not typically terminated except under Title 33 of the Ohio Revised Code for disrespect for authority, gross immorality, or incompetence.
When the mayoral control law was enacted more than a decade ago a clause that allowed these central administrators to work at will was added, though illegal. Sanders, upon being hired CEO, brought in and recommended for hire otherwise, a predominantly White team of the highest paid administrators under him, one of which is now criminally accused of stealing thousands of school district dollars. He and the arrogant and insensitive Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, now in control of the schools, have said these central office administrators must work at will and with the expectation day by day of possibly being fired, regardless of performance. Why is this necessary other than for the arbitrary and capricious abuse of power by these insecure men of sorts.
Why not have Jackson and Sanders under the stress of working day by day with families to support and under the threat of termination if one merely looks the wrong way? (Note: Cleveland schools principals must, by state law, have contracts and if a particular principal's contract is not up for non- renewal in June when the 18 slated schools are to be closed they must be replaced with those whose contracts are up for non renewal, unless they are legally terminated. Also, non-renewal notices must be legally sent by March of this year to be effective. The media probably want tell you that under the mayoral control law principals must have contracts since a clause was not illegally inserted to disenfranchise these predominantly Black administrators like the ones at central office. I bet Jackson and Sanders plan to try something slick in this situation too, and with the help of certain media and certain Black leaders of the community).
I guess since I won't be quiet on issues of public concern relative to Blacks and children of Cleveland the seemingly corrupt Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough will direct another jury to illegally convict me of resisting arrest without an accusation of record or any testimony from sole White male arresting peace officer Gerald Pace, and then issue an illegal warrant unless I appear to be jailed per the directive of Jackson and his appointed and incompetent law director Robert Triozzi, who brought the illegal and retaliatory criminal charges for Jackson on behalf of the city of Cleveland. And if I sue Judge Keough as a last resort seeking only compliance with the law, the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct, the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility and the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure she will probably hire Triozzi again to represent her. And this activity will proceed without anybody speaking out on the conflict of interest as to a corrupt White male law director like Triozzi, whose legal advice has run the city and its schools into a more than $75 million dept, representing the judge in a case where he brought malicious criminal charges against a Black journalist and activist on behalf of a Black city led by a Black mayor.
Prior to Jackson's wrath I was jailed in the county in August 2008, threatened over my investigations and articles in the Call and Post Newspaper, given a knockout drug and held naked in a jail cell. I was then supervised by a disgruntled male employee and released four days later without charges. Instead of being upset about this, Jackson had me prosecuted by the city of Cleveland and then called the Call and Post, via Press Secretary Andrea Taylor, to ask if officials there would quiet me while I was maliciously prosecuted for nothing other than free speech issues, though to no avail. Judge Keough was arbitrarily assigned to the case and she has harassed me at every turn, even via harassing phone calls from her subordinates at my home, not to mention a threat via email on her behalf by Richard D. Jones, the Cleveland representative for the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network
I hope Black people vote Keough out of office next year and we are still waiting for a wealth of Black leaders and others to stand with strong Black Cleveland City Councilmen Jeffrey Johnson and T.J. Dow on behalf of Cleveland's school children and the predominantly Black administrators, some of whom sweat day and night to enhance educational outcomes for the famously corrupt Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Johnson, Dow, Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell and a few others seem to be among a dearth of Black leaders with guts to speak up for Cleveland's school children. I have been jailed repeatedly and threatened to be quiet, yet I am still speaking out. What will Mayor Jackson and slick Triozzi do next to seek to quiet a Black journalist who speaks the truth? Who will call that smelly attorney of mine in the Keough case named Wayne Kerek to ask that he again beg for a ride home out near Parma, Oh. where Blacks dare to go, and then get his police friends from Middleburg Heights to drive him home and illegally arrest me for alleged lane changing while he is behind the driver's seat with an expired driver's license ? Are you listening to me FBI? If so, please step in.
Comments