Tribute to PLJ and other things
Since no entity around the area is seemingly going to pay tribute to outgoing Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones [second from left, mugging in this family photo] — gee, I wonder why the oversight? — I’ll just have to do my own to a man who dedicated his career to making Cuyahoga County a more efficient and inclusive place to live, work and play. His steady and ethical leadership set a benchmark we can only hope others coming into county government after him will aspire to reach.
A quick PLJ story: One evening around 9:30 my phone rang and a voice asked, “Mr. Ferguson?” I immediately caught the distinctive voice of the commissioner (whom I’d left a message for earlier that day), but still I said “Sorry, no Ferguson here.” Peter immediately caught my voice also. “Mansfield?” he queried. When I responded in the affirmative he went on to say that whoever took the message wrote the name down wrong. He then explained that he was just returning the calls he’d received that day … a standard practice of his.
Stop for a minute and think this through: Here was an elected official, in the middle of his term (not in campaign mode), calling back someone whom he thought to be a complete stranger … and on the same day he received the call. Folks, this was Churchillian in magnitude … at least for a Cuyahoga County elected official. Many politicians hereabouts, the minute they get elected precinct committee member (let alone dog catcher or a city council person), the first thing they do is quit returning phone calls … something they are very good at when they’re running for office.
In the U.S. Senate the pages have a term for it senators begin thinking they can walk on water: It’s called “going purple” (purple being the color of royalty). If the commissioner only leaves this legacy (and other local elected officials emulate it) his time doing the public’s work will have been well spent: Peter never went purple, he maintained his humility, and he called everyone back.
Dr. Sanders’ Departs
If anyone is surprised by the sudden departure of Cleveland schools CEO Eugene Sanders they should go see the film “Waiting for Superman,” in which Jeffery Canada, the driving force behind the highly successful Harlem Children’s Zone, states in plain terms what should be abundantly clear by now: Shuffling superintendents from one district to the next has not and will not solve the problem of our nation’s under-performing urban schools.
Indeed, the most recent survey of the Council of the Great City Schools found that the average length of tenure for a superintendent across the U.S. is 3.5 years, so Sanders is right on average. Additionally, he knows something we either don’t know or simply don’t care to acknowledge (more on that later).
We’ll hire another superintendent (or newly mint one from the district’s top-heavy hierarchy) and when they fail to improve things fast enough they too will get out of Dodge right before the axe falls. Superintendents all across the county know, going into a new district, they’ll have a too-short window before parents and the media begin looking around for either a rope, or some tar and feathers. But the simple fact is, no superintendent can satisfy the public’s unreasonable expectations utilizing the antiquated tools we provide for them.
In the press release announcing Sanders’ leaving seven bullet points set forth the very worthwhile goals the district needs to achieve … but what it doesn’t provide is a list of the changes needed to accomplish the lofty goals.
First and foremost is funding. It’s been over a decade since the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in the DeRolph case, where our funding mechanism for schools was ruled unconstitutional, yet nothing has ever been done to change it. Why is that? Oh, and what Dr. Sanders knows is this: Under this new governor the meager funds public schools currently receive will undoubtedly be cut. The new superintendent will be expected to make bricks without very much straw.
Secondly, we have to do more to engage and assist under-educated parents. We simply cannot expect for children to come to school unprepared for the educational process and still succeed. However, just as assuredly we cannot expect these parents to do their jobs sans some hands-on assistance similar to what is provided by the Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone.
Thirdly, while negotiations with the teachers’ union is off to a good start, we have to move more swiftly to bring the system into the modern era. Why, other than union resistance, do we still give students (who are already not doing too well, mind you) three months off? Hidebound tradition … which makes no sense.
Lastly, uniform and fair standards of teacher evaluation have to be developed so that good teachers can be rewarded with pay increases and poor teachers can be gotten rid of.
Another story: Back when I was in high school (during the Paleozoic Era) not one of the 30 students in our 10th grade Chemistry class could conquer balancing a chemical equation. However, when the beloved old teacher Evans Kern (who could really spin good yarns, when he was not berating us for our stupidity) took ill, a diminutive little white-haired substitute teacher took his place, and in two days even the class dullard (no, it wasn’t me!) had mastered chemical equations. This little old lady had taught me an even more valuable lesson: We weren’t stupid, the teacher simply could not (or forgot how to) teach. Some of those old troglodytes are still roaming the hallways of Cleveland schools … but they really need to go.
Who Are They to Judge Judges?
A few weeks ago a meeting was held at the Law School on the campus of Case/Western. Members of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association (no doubt spurred in part by the fact Judge Bridget McCafferty came within a hair’s breadth of winning reelection, in spite of the fact she’s under indictment) gathered to mount an effort to improve the quality of judges running for the county bench. A noble effort indeed since the quality of justice currently dispensed in the county tends to vary widely.
A final story: A few years back two people committed almost identical crimes — driving under the influence of alcohol the wrong way down a street and killing innocent people. Their previous records were almost identical … with one being slightly worse. They same assistant prosecutor was assigned both cases. Yet one defendant was sentenced to six years while the other was sentenced to 20 years. The difference being one offender was white and the other was black. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which was which. Oh, by the way, the white offender had the worse record.The need for a better quality of judicial candidates has been evident in the county for decades … yet, until now, nothing has been attempted.
So when the Q & A portion of the meeting came around the first question, asked by the very able esquire Mark Stanton, was how can we improve racial parity on the bench, given the fact almost all of the 34 judges in the county are white and the majority of the folks appearing before them are persons of color. While I didn’t hear any attempt to answer Stanton’s query, I do have a suggestion (one that county reformers — in their infinite wisdom — for some reason, took off the table).
Have judicial candidates run within the newly created 11 County Council districts … this would assure that the “name game” effect would, at least to some extent, be negated and would allow persons of color to win seats on the county bench. Now such a move would require the approval of the State Legislature, but if no one ever asks for such a change we’ll never know what the answer will be. We can’t reform a part of the county justice system and leave other parts untouched, can we? Can we?
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.