By Roldo Bartimole
The Cleveland Foundation has awarded $700,000 to help implement the new Cleveland School plan.
In case you haven’t heard the “plan” is called the “Jackson Plan” by the Plain Dealer, broadcast and other media. Truth distorters.
The Cleveland Foundation’s $700,000 matches the Gund Foundation’s $700,000 contribution to the “Jackson Plan.” No collusion involved.
Just a team effort. A corrupt effort.
Of course calling it the “Jackson Plan” is pure nonsense.
This is a perfect example of how the news media really is the propaganda media. Don’t forget it.
The double $700,000 gifts for the plan – which despite some good aspects is a take out of the Cleveland Teachers Union – is bought and paid for by the city’s two biggest foundations.
Therefore, it is the “Foundation Plan” not the “Jackson Plan.”
It’s public rule by ultra rich non-profits.
The same non-profits backed School Supt. Paul Briggs in the 1960s as he established a segregated school system. The details of his deceitfulness can be found in Federal Judge Frank Battisti’s definitive 1976 finding against the Cleveland schools. Briggs lied about the deteriorating school situation at annual meetings to the great applause of Cleveland’s corporate bosses. The condition of the schools and community today has its foundation in that sad period.
History matters. Too bad we get so little of it.
Mayor Frank Jackson is simply the popular puppet selling this new plan to the public via the Plain Dealer, TV and radio, themselves puppets of the conventional wisdom of corporate string pullers.
They are the one who need remedial treatment – in truth-telling.
What is the real aim of the plan other than blaming and crippling the Cleveland Teachers Union? Teachers are the scapegoats of the foundations, corporations, Brent Larkin and the piddling Pee Dee.
The Propaganda Dealer Sunday had a front page story heralding former Rep. Lou Stokes praising Jackson. Oh, such a surprise.
Dog bites man story. Some story. Next week’s PD front page: Mrs. Jackson praises Mr. Jackson. Stop the presses.
This manufactured “news” is part of the Pee Dee’s campaign. Such shills. Right beside the Stokes story is one about a poll by Bob Dykes of Triad Research Group, the establishment’s favorite pollster. Dykes says his heavily favored findings for the plan are “conclusive.” Naturally. Even though only 42 percent didn’t know of the plan when contacted! (Minor point.)
How about another side to this issue? Is that too much to ask?
Has the Pee Dee interviewed a number of teachers to get their views? Is what they have to say of any value? What PD editor would give the “other side” some ink? Apparently none. Would it be too much to ask for profiles of teachers and their struggles? Maybe a little more humanizing and less demonizing.
No. Instead Joe Roman – the usual corporate flak the PD finds so quotable – gets more space to misinform. Roman tells the Pee Dee that its poll shows strong support for the plan. “I think it shows very strong support for some very dramatic changes in the district,” said Roman, president of the corporate Greater Cleveland Partnership. By the way, Stokes has a sinecure at Squire-Sanders law firm, which was paid $127,369 by GCP in the most recent IRS report of 2010.
They’re all in the same boat. They sing the same song. It is produced and directed by the same machine. Blasted out to everyone by the Pee Dee.
I’ve seen this orchestra conducted much too often through the years.
We know that these corporate guys pushing these “reforms” can relate real well to teachers and Cleveland parents. After all they’re all workers, right? What they earn doesn’t matter, does it? In 2010 Ron Richard of the Cleveland Foundation was paid $575,190; Joe Roman of GCP got $467,303; and Dave Abbott of the Gund Foundation got $350,633, according to 2010 IRS filings. They must be able to speak for the ordinary hard-working people. (Cleveland teachers averaged $63,000 in 2007-08, according to the PD. That’s about $400,000 a year on average below our foundation leaders.)
Thanks Frank Jackson for bringing these experts to advise us. The Jackson I knew has changed. Not for the better either.
There is nothing like having a submissive news media to push the party line. The PD fills the bill every time. It likes to call itself objective.
The aim of all this “reform” is simple. It’s to pass a tax. What else. A tax that hits homeowners and renters. Keeps the system going. Do you ever think they would propose an income tax on those earning over $100,000. To help the school children. Tax themselves. Never. Nothing is that important.
The Plain Dealer editorial staff – led by Betsy Sullivan – provides the propaganda nourishment to sell this tax to the public. Sullivan gives it away by using such loaded words to describe teachers as “grousing” for standing up for their rights. The editorial said the grousing was because the teachers “felt they were not consulted.”
How dumb are these editorial people? The Plain Dealer itself reported that Jackson didn’t bring the teachers into this discussion until AFTER announcing plans. So how could the teachers feel consulted? They could only feel insulted.
The truth is these plans were devised not at City Hall but at the foundation offices. These are corporate plans. Never doubt that.
Who is kidding whom?
Do they believe we’re all stupid? I guess they do.
Too bad that people as State Sen. Nina Turner have turned in their independence button to be a patsy for the foundations and a front for Mayor Jackson.
Quite often when you find a bit of truth at the Pee Dee it is in its comment section on its website.
Here’s what one commenter (janies211) wrote about Turner’s backing of the Jackson plan in Columbus:
“Nina Turner is simply amazing. She rallied against Issue 2 because it was a straight partisan issue and she attacked the right wing for the bill saying, ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’ and lines like ‘we can’t go back and we won’t go back’ … That was when the opposition was John Kasich. Now that we have Frankie Jackson as a DUMBCRAT as her opposition, she quickly says we have to fight for compromise for the betterment of the children of Cleveland. She’s a drama queen… Does anyone with an ounce of intelligence realize you cannot fix schools by this corporate reform movement by privatizing public schools, turning them into for profit charters and then all of a sudden say that you achieved a miracle…”
She goes on:
“The status quo, Mrs. Turner, is the current so-called transformation plan. It’s nothing more than blaming so-called lazy teachers and their unions and shaping the debate that if we just gut the union, all will be right with Cleveland schools.”
Cleveland is a dead town. Our City Council proves it with their silence as the teachers get assaulted and the foundations rule. Hardly a peep out of city hall leaders. What a crew of nothings.
Or as the late Saul Alinsky said of Cleveland’s black leadership back in the late 1960s: “Cleveland has a reputation of having a beaten Negro population. Its leadership is pretty much bought out. That’s your reputation.”
Pretty harsh assessment. Yet some 40 years later it hits a sharp ring of truth.
The same foundations played their major role in the 1960s in quelling those few who tried to fight the system. They play that role today.
And despite all the media rah rah about a downtown revival, the city continues to sink.
Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
9 Responses to “ROLDO: Plain Dealer & Foundations – Propagandists”
David Eden
Roldo, you continue to be a major asset to this community. Once again, you show how the “old Cleveland playbook” — the foundations, the “poll,” the PD — is being trotted out again to replay the same failed game they have been playing for at least the last 30 years. What should be discussed is how under “Mayoral control” that the CLE schools have crashed and burned. Who has the guts to introduce a bill in Columbus to give the schools back to the community? From Mike White to One-term Jane to Frank Jackson … all have failed miserably as the leader of CLE schools.
Dick Peery
Roldo, you’re not looking deep enough when you ask, “What is the real aim of the plan other than blaming and crippling the Cleveland Teachers Union?”
It’s a lot bigger than that. All unions and school districts had better watch out. Remember when vouchers were only for Cleveland children? Now public money is used for private and parochial tuition across Ohio and the country. That’s the way the Kasich-Jackson plan will surely spread if it is enacted. It follows the recommendations of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate funded conservative think tank that develops model legislation for every state.
And it’s not just labor unions. The proposal would have a private, unelected corporate committee usurp powers that now belong to the public, a scary precedent.
For the Record: Paul Briggs did not establish segregation in Cleveland schools. He largely maintained the segregation that had been a fundamental part of the system throughout its history. Although it eased somewhat with Briggs, the school leaders lied about it under oath all the way to the Supreme Court. Their biggest worry was that they would face political destruction by the white community if they appeared to facilitate the inevitable court ordered busing.
Roldo Bartimole
David, thanks. Good to hear from you. There’s less noise with the mayor’s board of education but, as you say, not more progress. We have such a dearth of reporting about the crucial matters of politics and community that it is a dreadful shame.
Dick, this is all part of the times, in which powerful interests are determined to take all that had been won in previous generations. It’s shameful that Lou Stokes and Frank Jackson have become a part of it. The people spoke loudly about Sen. Bill 5. Now Jackson and Turner are opening the back door to the same nonsense.
EJ
I think the crucial aspect is still missing from the arguement and that is the voice of the concerned, voting & tax-paying parents and citizens of the CMSD-check it on facebook. I wouldn’t mind paying for schools that would work and show a substantial benefit. The bottomline is that the change must be evident and substantial. It should provide direct positive impact on classroom instruction and building environments. We want are K-5 elementary back. We want effective middle schools. We want a sense of humanity imparted to our children thru the educational experience.
Roldo Bartimole
EJ, I can’t argue with a thing that you say.
It makes common sense.
snorky
” and despite all the media rah rah about a downtown revival , the city continues to sink”.
And sink it will , along with the County as the abated tax futures choke out the remaining young citizens who are the odd dots in an aging Cuyahoga County population matrix.
In this year of Dickens , Cleveland , Ohio 2012 is truly a tale of two cities , a downtown corporate welfare zone , surrounded by the actual poverty level city of Cleveland with a populace which lacks elected political figures in possession of enough integrity to represent their concerns.
And would someone please explain to me how the 20,000 projected jobs promised by the gateway development are playing out today?
Or perhaps what actual relationship the citizens of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County will have with the medical mart and con – vention center that we are paying for?
Thank you Roldo for keeping it real.
The plain dealer awaits its certain fate as the official propaganda organ for the Cleveland clinic and its aims.
The plain dealer started printing fiction as fact sometime ago , and is anything but the newspaper of record here , save in a default fashion.
msmcgale
1.Many of the businesses behind this plan pay little or no property tax to the schools thanks to tax abatement. They make a “donation” to a foundation that then gets to decide how the money is spent. Wouldn’t it be interesting if a regular taxpayer could make a “donation” instead of paying property tax? Then we could all decide how our money is spent.
2. Cleveland teachers do not have a residency requirement so many do not have the power to vote Jackson out. He would never be so silly as to go after police or firefighter unions.
Roldo Bartimole
Snorky – Always enjoy your comments and thank you for thanking me. It’s appreciated.
EJ
Please check out my facebook group-Concerned Voting & Tax Paying Citizens and Parents of the CMSD. I am trying to organize a community plan for the schools.